Hybridization in bananas (Musa sp.)

[Lauta_hibrid]

Good morning, my name is Lautaro and I am trying to generate a new variety through hybridization.  I always liked bananas, Musa sp., and genetics and thanks to fate I was able to find a couple of varieties and species of my interest.  I have not seen anything on the forum about this topic so if there is already a thread, let me know, so as not to repeat information.  The bananas that we know are originated from a hybridization of two species M. acuminata and M. balbiciana and created the Musa x paradisíaca (the one we know without seeds. My idea is to hybridize to create new varieties and perhaps make some mutations to ensure that they do not have seeds. The species I have are M. ornata, M. velutina, Orito banana (M. x paradisíaca), Musa acuminata microcarpa var. Zebrina and some patio bananas of unknown cultivar. This is not just an idea, I was already able to pollinate musa ornata with M. velutina and I am waiting for its fruits to ripen 💪☺️.


1°- Musa velutina
2°- Musa ornata
3° Musa acuminata zebrina (from internet)


Here you can see the first green ovaries that were pollinated that same day (it had not yet released its own pollen)

[Lauta_hibrid]

After a year we have already achieved the first seedlings of M. ornata x M. velutina. This cross is the same as the one that formed the M. ornata Royal Purple. I will make my own version ☺️. I don't have a good climate for bananas but I have achieved this first step. My idea is to cross the bananas with seeds with the seedless banana this year.



Talking to a researcher from the US who lives in Hawaii, I was able to figure out how to do it. It seems that there can be small productions of pollen in seedless bananas and by taking it you can pass on parthenocarpy and "female sterility" to the hybrid. Even Cavendish can have useful pollen. So I'm waiting for the first flowers to see if I can get something 💪

[JackfruitChan2]

Wow dude that’s so cool!!!! I wish you luck! Seedless hardy pink bananas would be so cool!

[cassowary]

Thanks for sharing!

Keep it going.

I would probobly try to increase the population size a bit so you have more to select from.
Luther Burbanks work is inspiring and easy to digest.

I’v just planted some open pollinated banana seed from different mother varieties. The offsping have been very interesting. One came out with very dark clour on the outside of the main steam and wavy banana bunches.
I’ll try and post an image on day.

Let us know what the fruit looks like on your first generation

[Lauta_hibrid]

The first sign that seedless bananas could be hybridized was through a forum called "bananas.org", from there and scientific works, and then talking to Gabe Satcher-Smith who has Instagram: @hawaiibananasource I was able to figure out the other part. I would like to create a small community and share information since there is very little access to these things. I made a list of plants of interest to achieve hybrids, but on that Instagram you can see some of the hybrids that he created. What I am looking for this year is to see if I can find some pollen, although the variety of sweet seedless banana (called "ORO" in Argentina and Brazil) is supposedly AA (although I don't know if the one I have is the correct one), I have not seen pollen, compared to the photo that Gabe uploaded to Instagram. There is a lot of scientific work that talks about this, the percentages of fertility of pollen, but I have not seen any pollen with the naked eye.  I may have to work with Faith, rubbing the stamen of these species and then putting what I drag on the stigma of the banana flower with seed. As soon as the M. ornata flower opens, I will do my first practice. If you want to know which species you can use, ask me, I have more information than available plants 😅. In the photo you can see what the pollen of Cavendish looks like... a wonder since it is the one I most wanted to cross.

[Coconut Cream]

I can't offer any help but I admire your work and those are some gorgeous flowers and plants. I hope you reach your goals.

[Lauta_hibrid]

I have news for you!!! 🤯🫣😍 This is the first time I've seen abundant pollen on a seedless banana. According to an American researcher from Hawaii, he told me it would be Bluggoe, aka Burro, which is ABB type.


so as I planned, last year I crossed ornamental bananas with seeds, this year I will manage to cross seedless bananas 💪. I found this flower on 2 plants and I got something like 20 flowers and just one looked so spectacular. I hope to also find a good flower with a lot of pollen in a cavendish 💪. I don't know how the genetics of these hybrids work since the pollen of triploids is haploid, so I don't know if there is "crossing over" (the stage where the chromosomes mix). I will continue investigating. Maybe 33% will come out with the chromosomes of M. acuminata and 66% of hybrids with M. balbisiana, so there is a high possibility that they will come out with seeds... but in a plan with large flowers maybe I will get some seedless and fruit-bearing plants 🤤. I will keep you posted if the fruit of M. ornata, which is the one I used as a mother, gets fat.

[Lauta_hibrid]

I am going to update. These are the results of the pollination of Musa Ornata x Bluggoe (pollen). As you can see, there are fat fruits and some thin ones. There is also partial fatness that reflects where the seed was produced. I will have a large seedling to inspect. In the case of M. velutina x Dwarf cavendish and X Bluggoe, the fruits did not fatten... I will look when they ripen to see if there are any lost seeds... but I doubt it. I did not cover the flowers since they release a lot of humidity... so there may be contamination... we will see if it gave a good result by comparing seedlings, but next time I will try to protect with some paper that breathes better. I also removed the petals and nectar so that it does not attract pollinators.
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[Mysta]

Neat! I haven't had much time to actually read into it but I've been growing a Musa valentina with intent to cross pollinate with my Musa acuminata × balbisiana(blue java)

[Lauta_hibrid]

That's great, unfortunately I don't have Blue Java here in Argentina, but I've seen that it's feasible to form seeds in Blue Java and seeing what comes out between the "blue" and the pink of M. velutina would be great. If you use M. velutina as the seed mother, keep in mind that before the bracts open, they already pollinate themselves, it's difficult to find the unopened stamens. Make sure to peel off the bracts by hand and remove the flowers that are releasing pollen. In the case of Caminantes and Balbisianas, you won't have any problems because the first flowers are only female. When you have any progress, don't hesitate to post 💪🏻

[Francis_Eric]

you saw this on Wayne's Word  Explains Hybrids pretty good
(link  ) https://www.waynesword.net/hybrids1.htm







2. Origin Of Parthenocarpic (Seedless) Fruits
The botanical term parthenocarpy refers to the development of the ovary of a flower into a fruit without fertilization. [The biological term parthenogenesis refers to the development of an egg without fertilization.] Fruits that develop parthenocarpically are typically seedless. Some seedless fruits come from sterile triploid plants, with three sets of chromosomes rather than two. The triploid seeds are obtained by crossing a fertile tetraploid (4n) plant with a diploid (2n) plant. When you buy seedless watermelon seeds, you get two kinds of seeds, one for the fertile diploid plant and one for the sterile triploid. The triploid seeds are larger, and both types of seeds are planted in the same vicinity. Male flowers of the diploid plant provide the pollen which pollinates (but does not fertilize) the sterile triploid plant. The act of pollination induces fruit development without fertilization, thus the triploid watermelon fruits develop parthenocarpically and are seedless. Most bananas purchased at your local supermarket came from sterile triploid hybrids. The fruits developed parthenocarpically and are seedless.

Close-up view of fleshy, berrylike (baccate) banana fruits. The small black dots inside are the remnants of aborted ovules that did not mature into seeds. Since this fruit develops on a sterile plant without fertilization it is termed parthenocarpic. The following cross shows one plausible origin of the seedless banana:


he cultivated banana is often listed in botanical references as Musa x paradisiaca (Musaceae), although it is actually a complex hybrid derived from two diploid Asian species, M. acuminata and M. balbisiana. Common cultivated bananas are usually triploid (3n) with three sets of chromosomes. [Note: The word "set" is defined here as one haploid set of chromosomes.] If A represents one haploid set of chromosomes from diploid M. acuminata (AA) and B represents one haploid set of chromosomes from diploid M. balbisiana (BB), then hybrid bananas have three sets of chromosomes represented by AAB, ABB or another 3-letter (triploid) combination of A's and B's. Like seedless watermelons and red grapes, bananas are sterile and do not produce mature seeds. [Sometimes you can find aborted ovules inside the fruit that appear like tiny black dots.]

In the formation of gametes during normal meiosis, homologous chromosomes must pair up with each other during synapsis of prophase I. Like other odd polyploids (with 3 sets of chromosomes), bananas are sterile and seedless because one set of chromosomes (A or B) has no homologous set to pair up with during synapsis of meiosis. Therefore meiosis does not proceed normally, and viable gametes (sex cells) are not produced. Since banana fruits (technically berrylike ripened ovaries) develop without fertilization they are termed parthenocarpic. Without viable seeds, banana plants must be propagated vegetatively (asexually) by planting corms, pieces of corms or sucker sprouts.



Some of these other articles you may need to search through internet archive (or wayback machine)

[Lauta_hibrid]

Everything you say is good. It took me 2 years to discover that absolutes (as rules or generalities) are not so. Bananas acquired sterility and parthenocarpy in their evolution, they were given by genetic mutations. There are diploid bananas without seeds. Triploidy increases sterility, but it is all a matter of analyzing one plant at a time since they are all different. As for cultivated ones, they can produce some pollen or some seeds, this phenomenon is the one used to create the new genetics of improved bananas. That is the main strategy that I am going to use, Cavendish is very female sterile, but it can have some pollen and this can be haploid, diploid or triploid. The same happens with the others. An example of residual sterility can be seen in these Pisang Awak fruits that had seeds (by cross-pollination). That would be my strategy, passing pollen from one to the other, mixing fertile with almost infertile.  There is also a research work that used pollen from an improved tetraploid Fhia 21 to generate hybrids with a wild recipient plant capable of producing seeds, and they achieved 60% triploid plants and 96% were sterile. So we do have the opportunity to create new seedless bananas.

[Lauta_hibrid]

. about to finish off my first plant, achieved by crossing two ornamental banana trees: Musa ornata x Musa velutina. Winter has arrived, but it's already flowering 👌🏻☺️. The characteristics are intermediate, flowering at a low height (1.60m), just like M. velutina.  its trunk is thicker than velutina, slightly whitish skin (like ornata which has skin with a white covering, but very subtle. its petioles are short, much more than its parents, it throws 2 colored bracts instead of 1, before releasing the flower, while velutina gives only 1 bract (it is the leaf that has color at the base and the lamina is reduced, that betrays the next filtration). the speeds in the inflorescence part are reduced, less than velutina, while pure irnata has no speed. for now the flower has not come out, in a few weeks we will see if its bananas resemble velutina (pink, round and hairy) or ornata (long, thin and green, no speed).



I'm In the last photo you can see the O x V hybrid on the far left, while on the right you can see Velutina in bloom

[Lauta_hibrid]

Here I bring you the first flowering of one of my ornamental hybrids Musa ornata x Musa velutina (pollen). The idea is to recreate the Royal Purple variety. You can see comparisons of leaves, leaf base, last leaf before the bracts appear, color of a Musa velutina bract compared to those of the hybrid. What you see is that the morphology of the hybrid is more compact and robust than its parent, Velutina. It is also dwarf and not tall like Ornata. My next attempt will be to cross it with Bluggoe ABB banana since the bibliography seems to show that it can form diploids and triploids from its seeds. It is easy for it to produce seeds and most have those ploidy. That way I would get a dwarf, pink, seedless banana, with a fast cycle (one year from seed) and very resistant to cold. We will see from September onwards, when it is spring here.