Contribution of synthetic tetraploids (AAAA) and diploids (AA) to black Sigatoka resistance and bunch weight to their triploid progenies

The generation of banana triploids from tetraploid-diploid crosses requires knowledge on the influence of the parents on black Sigatoka resistance and agronomic traits to the triploid progenies. The objective of this investigation was to determine the influence of tetraploid and diploid parents on black Sigatoka resistance and agronomic traits in the triploid progenies generated from tetraploid-diploid crosses. The mating scheme was designed as a 4 × 5 North Carolina II mating design. Due to problems in seed set and germination, progenies from 2 male parents with 4 female parents were evaluated at two sites in Uganda. The results showed that the male-parent triploid progeny heritability estimate for the number of leaves at harvest was greater than the female parent estimate. The diploid parents had higher correlation coefficients for the total leaves at harvest with the triploid progenies than tetraploid parents with triploid progenies. Disease development over time took more days in diploid parents than in the tetraploid parents with the triploid progenies as intermediates. These results suggested that diploids transferred black Sigatoka resistance to the triploid progenies as measured by the number of standing leaves and disease development overtime. There was a positive correlation (P < 0.05) between tetraploid female parents and triploid progenies for plant height and bunch weight. The triploid progeny-tetraploid female parent heritability estimates for plant height (0.92) and bunch weight (0.72) were highly significant. These results indicated that the female synthetic tetraploids influenced plant height and bunch weight in the triploid progenies. Therefore, it is important to select the tetraploids with heavy bunches to effectively improve yield in triploid progenies generated by tetraploid-diploid crosses. The tetraploid-diploid progenies had a significant (P < 0.05) family-by-site interaction for bunch weight indicating that new banana genotypes need to be tested across different environments to select stable genotypes to promote to end-users.