positive selection in plantain to increase bunch size - results from trials in latin america and...

Positive selection in plantain to increase bunch size - results from trials in Latin America and West Africa

C Staver, M. Turmel, BioversityB Dzomeku, CRI Ghana

D Rengifo, IDIAF Dominican RepublicJ Castellon, UNAN Leon Nicaragua

RTB annual meeting 8-12 Dec 2015

Planting material selection by farmersWorst: Uprooting from an old field

Better: uprooting from a younger field

Best: selection of well formed, healthy suckers

Question: Can field scale yield potential be increased through the selection of plants with above average finger numberas source of planting material?

Positive selection to increase yield???

Method – superior, elite and control

Elite: Technician or scientist managed selection in multiple fields with uniform conditions – finger number and plant htMacropropagation with corms from selected plants

Superior: Farmer managed identification of better plants in own fieldsUse of corms for direct planting of test plot

Control: Randomly selected corms either for direct planting or macropropagation

Round one: getting started

Method – superior, elite and control

Superior: corms (less strict selection)Elite: macropropagation (more strict selection)Control: either corms or macropropagated

Choose bunches with most fingers among 50% of plants reaching harvest first:

Round two: refining selection

Results: Nicaragua

SiteWithout selection With selection

Fruit number

Bunch weight

Ht of sucker at flowering

Fruit number

Bunch weight

Ht of sucker at flowering

Nicaragua – El PegonFirst cycle dwarf (elite)

46 20.8 1.3 52 23.8 1.4

Nicaragua – Telica first cycle dwarf (superior)

31 37

Nicaragua – TelicaSecond cycle dwarf (superior)

41.2 12.6 44.2 13.9

Nicaragua – Posoltega first cycle dwarf (superior)

32.7 11.2 48.2 16.9

Nicaragua – Rivas first cycle Cemsa ¾ (Superior)

51.4 0.7 54.6 1.3

Results: Dominican Republic

SiteWithout selection With selection

Fruit number

Bunch weight

Ht of sucker at flowering

Fruit number

Bunch weight

Ht of sucker at flowering

Dominican Republic – Cibao Central macho x hembra (elites)

32 0.75 43 0.9

Dominican Republic – Cibao Central FHIA 21 (elites)

69 0.77 76 0.91

Results: Ghana

SiteWithout selection With selection

Fruit number

Bunch weight

Ht of sucker at flowering

Fruit number

Bunch weight

Ht of sucker at flowering

Ghana – Fumesua Apantu (false horn) first cycle

28 0.4 45 1.3

Ghana - Fumesua Apantu (false horn) second cycle

30 46

Ghana - Assin Adawomako Apantu (false horn) first cycle

20 0.4 40 0.7

Ghana – Fumesua Apim (French) first cycle

66 1.2 115 1.7

Ghana - Fumesua Apim (French) second cycle

70 1.3 136 2.0

Ghana - Assin Adawomako Apim (French) first cycle

56 0.4 76 0.6

Conclusions:

What is potential for additional increase??

Selection of superior or elite mother plants appears promising to increase yields with same current inputs

Follow up steps

How can positive selection become part of improved seed system?- link to tissue culture labs which multiply elite plants- growers with seed system function based on corms- specialized producers of macropropagated plants

Finalize data collection in 2016:- second harvest data from plots- first harvest data from Round 3 plots

With complete data, analyze elite plant selection criteria- plants chosen based on lst cycle, 2nd cycle or both?- plants chosen based on finger number alone or combined with height of following sucker- - how does selection criteria vary based on

marketing units (fingers, bunch, kilograms)????

Muchas gracias!!!

Dominican Republic – first harvest finalized

Women plantain cooperative - NicaraguaFarmer collaborators - Ghana

Superior plants - Nicaragua