Bananas and Food Security - Bioversity International

200 Les productions bananières / Bananas and food security – Session 1
include dessert, cooking, dual and multi-purpose varieties belonging to different genomic
groups like AA, BB, AB, AAB, AAA and ABB.
Many of the local cultivars exhibit desirable attributes at varying intensity including
resistance/tolerance to stress factors—biotic and abiotic. Many cultivars/types vary
considerably in their reaction to leaf spot diseases and a few are proved field resistant.
Some of the cultivars can perform satisfactorily well under partial shade and some are
drought tolerant. High level of suckering and prolonged ratooning capacity are shown by
some other clones. A few cultivars, especially belonging to the AB genome, show a
combination of a number of favourable traits like pest, disease, drought and shade
tolerance with ratooning capacity suggesting their potential for rainfed cultivation and
banana improvement programmes.
India: a center of great Musa diversity
Banana is a tradition crop in India and the earliest reference to the crop is found in the
Hindu classic – Ramayana. Tropical Asia including the Indian Gene Centre is believed to
be the centre of origin of the crop. Origin of cultivated bananas from M. acuminata or as
hybrids with M. balbisiana is linked with mutation, polyploidy, sterility, parthenocarpy
and vegetative propagation is accepted. Centuries of human selection also played a vital
role in the evolution of present day cultivars. India in general, peninsular India in
particular, is a centre of great diversity for banana cultivars, types, progenitors and wild
species/relatives. It is stated by Shanmugavelu et al. (1992) that M. balbisiana has a
wide geographical distribution; so also the other natural species M. acuminata. The
presence in India of these two important species of the section Eumusa, which includes
most of the bananas can be taken as an indication of the diverse origin of Indian
bananas. Raman et al. (1968) reported that the variation in cultivated bananas is high
and complex with combinations of different degrees of expression of characteristics of
the parental species of M. balbisiana, M. acuminata, M. chiliocarpa and M. coccinea.
According the Singh and Uma (1996) long period of domestication under varying growing
conditions, in addition to interaspecific and interspecific crosses have created high
diversity in Indian bananas. Chandel and Agarwal (1996) pointed out that several
species such as M. acuminata, M. balbisiana and their interspecific hybrids at different
ploidy levels along with wild types occur in India. More than 300 landraces of banana
and plantain are found in diverse regions and habitats. Amalraj et al. (1993) reported
that about 10 species of Musa and two species of Ensete occur in India while CSIR
(1962) recorded 15 species. Among the area suggested by Iyer (1987) for exploration for
banana germplasm in India includes Western Ghats and Kerala in south India.
Subspecies of M. acuminata is common in Western Ghats in peninsular India and is
remarkably similar to the subspecies burmanica (Bhakthavalsalu and Sathiamoorthy
1979). The local cultivar diversity is more conspicuous with the hybrid groups such as
AB, AAB and ABB clones than other in south India, especially in the states of Kerala,
Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Interestingly it is observed by Amalraj et al. (1993) that
cultivar variability decreases as one proceeds from extreme south towards north.