Annual Report 2012 - African Agricultural Technology Foundation

30 AATF Annual Report 2012
Bacterial Wilt-Resistant Banana Project
Banana cultivar lines
with resistance to
bacterial wilt disease
developed in Uganda
A woman dances in Nampula,
Mozambique
Several transgenic lines of the Gonja
manjaya cultivar will be developed and
evaluated for resistance to BXW in glasshouse
by IITA at the Biosciences East and Central
Africa hub in Kenya. Another CFT at Kawanda,
Uganda is expected to start in mid-2013
and the first one for Kenya in 2014.
Dr Leena Tripathi, Principal
Investigator, BXW Project
Scientists working on the Bacterial Wilt (BXW) Resistant Banana Project
in 2012 reported that they had selected 12 lines out of 65 lines of the
banana cultivar Sukali ndiizi popularly known as apple banana that have
shown resistance to the banana bacterial wilt disease. Sixty-five (65)
lines were tested in confined field trials (CFTs) at Uganda’s National
Agricultural Research Organisation’s (NARO) Kawanda research station.
Results from the trials demonstrated that constitutive expression of the
sweet pepper Hrap or Pflp gene in banana resulted in enhanced resistance
to Xanthomonas wilt.
Product development progress
The 12 lines were singled out of 65 transgenic plants and non-transgenic
mother plants that the Project evaluated for BXW resistance and
assessed for disease symptom development in the first CFT in Uganda.
All transgenic lines tested showed a significantly higher resistance in
comparison to control non-transgenic plants. The bunch weight and size
of the transgenic lines were found to be similar to non-transgenic plants.
The best 10 lines will be tested further with more replicates in a second
Deploying agricultural technologies for farmers