IITA executes new plantain crosses

The International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) said it has recorded significant progress in its plantain research in West Africa with the generation of seedlings from crosses with vitro induced tetraploids from diploids, the institute's banana breeding manager, Dr. Delphine Amah, has said. Amah, who supervised execution of the crosses, said they were vital for plantain improvement in West Africa in the years ahead. Delivering her contract review seminar titled: Support to Banana and Plantain Breeding: Updates on West Africa, Amah remarked that the banana unit had recorded giant strides in the recent years. She said that as part of a revised pre-breeding strategy to produce improved parents while shortening the breeding cycle for plantain, the unit was now producing tetraploids which have four sets of chromosomes from diploids (which have two), using optimized in vitro doubling techniques. In addition, tissue culture techniques have been employed to generate seedlings from crosses through embryo culture and mass propagation of plants for clonal evaluation. So far, Amah and her team have produced and distributed thousands of Agbagba plantain plantlets to the IITA farm unit and Youth Agripreneur project for propagation and distribution. Furthermore, she added, they have established pollination blocks with female fertile plantain landraces and Black Sigatoka resistant tetraploid plantain hybrids for accelerated breeding