Exploring the natural diversity in Elakki Bale (Musa AB) for identification of early, DWARF and panama wilt resistant types, their evaluation for traits of economic importance, and mass multiplication

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Date
2013-12-26
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University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru
Abstract
The indigenous banana variety, Elakki Bale, has attained commercial proportions in recent past owing to its superior quality attributes and better price realization to the growers. For facilitating large scale area expansion of this elite type, the present investigation was carried out to identify near-ideotypic lines of short duration, dwarf stature and resistant to Panama wilt disease. Also, the possibility of mass multiplying the variety through micropropagation and macropropagation was explored for meeting the growing needs, and expansion of this variety in non-traditional belts. Extensive survey was carried out in 98 villages spread across 28 taluks of 10 districts of Karnataka, and 69 apparently promising accessions were identified. However, severe incidence of rhizome rot during nursery maintenance resulted in complete loss of suckers belonging to varied accessions. Morphometric evaluation of the remaining 37 accessions revealed considerable diversity in terms of growth, reproductive phenology related parameters, yield and postharvest quality attributes. Considerably large numbers of accessions evaluated for their reaction to Fusarium wilt through in vitro screening were found to be resistant to the disease. Based on overall performance, five most promising lines (EB 23, EB 38, EB 48, EB 49 and EB 58) were shortlisted for future studies. For micropropagation, shoot tip explants obtained from small sized suckers, surface sterilization with NaOCl (0.5%) and HgCl2 (0.1%) and inoculated onto the medium supplemented with Rifampicin (200 mg/l) gave maximum aseptic cultures. Sucrose (3%) was found to promote maximum shoot multiplication, while glucose (2%) was better carbon source for ex vitro rooting and hardening. Amongst different growth regulators, TDZ was found to be the most potent cytokinin, whereas in vitro rooting was promoted in the presence of IBA (1.0 mg/l). Preliminary studies on macropropagation revealed better multiplication in untreated suckers, while use of BAP promoted the growth of emerged plantlets.
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bananas, planting, fruits, developmental stages, vegetative propagation, diseases, biological phenomena, biological development, byproducts, concentrates
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