Quote:
Originally Posted by Chironex
Gabe, this is fascinating stuff! Unfortunately, kobakoba.co.uk is no longer working. I am going through the MGIS database to try to locate someone with access to F'ei seeds. Any ideas about where I might find some?
What I am thinking is finding a fertile wild species with drought/heat tolerance and with fewer than 5 seeds per banana, to cross with a tetraploid. Does this make any sense, or is my thinking flawed?
Thanks in advance for your reply.
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I am currently growing out a few different Fe'i cultivars for distribution to hobby growers in Hawaii and members here. Some Fe'i do produce seeds, but close to nothing is known about their viability and true-to-typeness. I highly doubt you will be able to find Fe'i seeds for sale anywhere.
Bananas are a particularly difficult plant to traditionally breed, inherent in the fact you are trying to produce seeds from a plant that does not want to do so, and from those seeds produce a plant that wont want to form seeds either. It is possible, but what is generally required is lots and lots of plants, lots and lots of trials, and lots and lots of patience. It can be done by the home grower, but when you look at the amount of work breeding stations put into producing just a handful of new varieties over decades of work, you may begin to appreciate the difficulty of the work in a sense.
Describing all of the intricacies of banana breeding here on the forum would give me carpal tunnel syndrome, but if you are serious about learning how its done, I recommend finding the book "The Evolution of the Bananas" by N.W. Simmonds.
Attached is a short summary of breeding by Ken Shepherd.