Genetic Fidelity Analysis in the Micropropagated Banana Derived from Immature Primordial Male Flower Bud

Abstract

Among the delicious dessert bananas, Grand Naine (Cavendish-Musa AAA), is widely grown in India due its high productivity and another cv. Rasthali (Musa AAB’Silk’) is very popular owing to its delightful aroma and sweet pulp. Bananas in general are affected by numerous pest fungal and viral diseases. While both the verities viz., ‘Gand Naine’ and ‘Rasthali’ are susceptible viral diseases, ‘Rasthali’ is highly susceptible to Fusarium wilt caused by the fungi Fusarium oxysporunm f. sp. cubense. Micropropagation (plant tissue culture, PTC) has become an integral part of the banana production worldwide now as propagation by tissue culture from disease free mother plants have several advantages as the planting material do not carry systemic diseases, vigorous and are more uniform in their growth development and maturity and thus making the production practices easier leading to high productivity. While shoot tips have been used as explants in general for micropropagation of banana, the use of floral meristems for micropropagation have been also reported by earlier workers (Cote et al., 1996 and International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 4 (2017) pp. 1759-1769 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com