Towards improving highland bananas

Abstract

Banana is an important food crop in Uganda. Its production per unit land area has declined doe to pests and diseases and
soil fertility depletion. Host plant resistance is a recommended intervention. However, banana breeding is technically
difficult because oflow female fertilitv. The landraces in the field gene bank at Kawanda were pollinated with pollen
from the wild banana 'Calcutta 4' to e~aluate them for seed fertility. Out ofthe 62 clones screened, 33 were seed-fertile.
The most fertile land races belonged to 'Nakabululu' and 'Nfuuka' clone sets. Viable seeds were obtained from several
land races indicating that genetic improvement ofthese highland bananas through cross breeding is possible. The
fertile Iandraces should be cross-pollinated with improved diploids to produce resistant hybrids.