shannondicorse

Thaibanana,

LONG EXPLANATION: Under swidden ("slash & burn"/ "slash & plant") cultivation of the last few thousand years; when a "new" cultivar appeared, I believe it was usually the crossing of a previous cultivar (pollen donor) with a fertile seeded type (egg donor).

In the native range of Musa, "wild" bananas spontaneously appear on tropical regrowth after abandonment of swidden plots. Viable Musa seeds often exist for years in the "soil seed bank" there waiting for appropriate "trigger" signals for germination.

This is, after all, one of the prime Musa acuminata life-cycle strategies.

Hypothetically, when a peasant horticulturalist discovered a "new" seedless Musa in the field on or near his/her plot it was saved and vegetatively propagated - because, of course, seedless bananas, don't usually bear viable seed. Modern "civilised" horticulturalists do this today; and certainly peasant and primitive horticulturalists do this too (from my experience speaking with, and observing them).

But this is only the beginning! The vegetatively propagated varieties mutate on their own; and many "somaclonal variants" of that one clone would come into being and be recognised and saved with time.

Farmers looked then (as we do now) for nice new qualities emerging in a mutant clone: things like disease resistance, plant size, ease of cultivation, favourable fruit quality, curious characteristics (e.g., Pisang Seribu - "Thousand Fingers") and such.

So Gros Michel has varied in plant and fruit size, ripening characteristics, bunch shape etc.

Even in places where Gros Michel was of recent introduction, e.g., Jamaica (<200 years?), somaclonal variants have emerged and were selected.

So while there is "one" Gros Michel in terms of the fertilisation event that produced the ancestor plant; there are definitely varieties within the group.


Sorry for all the words.



shannon


shannon.di.corse@gmail.com