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Banana improvement through biotechnology-ensuring food security in the 21st century |
Cahiers Agricultures. Volume 7, Number 6, 468, Novembre-Décembre 1998, Réseaux transnationaux d'amélioration des plantes utilisant les biotechnologies
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 Résumé
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Author(s) : Robert Haïcour, Viet Bui Trang, Djailo Dhed’a, Akym Assani, Frédéric Bakry, François Xavier Côte |
Summary : Banana and plantain are staple foods for nearly 400 million people. High-quality dessert bananas for export account for about 12% of the total production, whereas the overall production level is severely threatened by diseases and pests such as fungi (Mycosphaerella and Fusarium), nematodes and viruses. Biotechnology could provide efficient solutions to the problem of plant breeding limitations (sterility of most cultivars) and difficulties encountered with plant protection treatments (not economically feasible under low input sustainable systems, and detrimental to the environment). Over the past 10 years, there has been great progress in the development of banana and plantain biotechnologies. Micropropagation of banana is currently achieved industrially, and transgenic banana plants have already been obtained. Due to the sterility of most cultivated edible banana varieties, plant propagation has been achieved traditionally by vegetative multiplication using naturally occurring plant off-shoots. Nowadays, 40 million micropropagated banana plants are produced annually and used as planting material. In vitro multiplication of banana is mostly performed through proliferation of vegetative meristems, which has the advantage of producing healthy homogeneous plants. The recent development of embryogenic suspension cultures has paved the way to future mass production of banana plants at low cost. Such suspension cultures can also be used for cryopreservation and as source material for genetic transformation. The agronomic conformity of banana plants produced from suspension cultures is currently being evaluated in the field. Various figures inserted in the text illustrate the morphology of banana plants, breeding options currently being explored at the international level for banana improvement, and the somatic embryogenesis cycle through regeneration of cell suspensions initiated from male flower-derived embryogenic calli. Plant regeneration from protoplasts has been achieved. Protoplast fusion is particularly promising for banana improvement, as most cultivated varieties are related, triploid and sterile, while most genetic variability occurs in diploid fertile genotypes. Fusion between haploid plants and selected diploid genotypes could facilitate the production of new triploid bananas. The first transgenic banana plants were produced in 1995 through particle bombardment of embryogenic suspension cultures. Recently, Agrobacterium-mediated transformation has also been achieved. This will now make it possible to introduce, into banana and plantain, valuable agronomic traits for pest and disease resistance, fruit maturation and storage. In conclusion, at the onset of the 21st century, improvement of banana through biotechnology should help ensure food security by stabilizing production levels in sustainable cropping systems geared towards meeting domestic and export market demand. |
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