中国P站

Abstract

Plant biotechnology has the potential to play a key role in the sustainable production of banana. Currently, no genetically transformed bananas are commercially available; however there is enormous potential for genetic manipulation of banana species for disease and pest resistance using the existing transformation systems. Banana crop faces numerous environmental challenges, particularly with fungal and bacterial pathogens as well as pests and abiotic stresses. The problem is aggravated by the limited diversity of cultivars. Conventional breeding methods have limited success in banana crop improvement due to low female fertility, sterility, ploidy levels and poor seed set; besides the process is time consuming. For many banana diseases like Fusarium wilt, BBTV, CMV and moko disease and no chemical treatment exists and destruction of the affected plants is the only method of control. For the others, the cost of chemical treatment is increasing as more virulent strains appear, or even prohibitive for small farmers in developing countries or else damaging to the environment. Genetically modified bananas would benefit both large commercial and smallscale farmers. Producers of export bananas spend millions of dollars annually to control phytopathogenic fungi and nematodes with chemicals. Bananas that are disease and pest resistant, therefore, would provide them with a source of planting material that is affordable and safe to use.

Keywords: Conventional breeding, Disease and pest resistant, Genetic manipulation, Phytopathogenic fungi