Plantain (AAB) is a major component of the daily diet of populations in most tropical areas, eaten after cooking (green or ripe) according to various traditional recipes (boiled, fried, ...), but is also a promising raw material for the food industry (infant cereals, baking flours, chips, ...). Its production is based on a variety of cropping systems ranging from the "home garden" to monoculture copying dessert export banana, and includes mixed systems in association with other food crops (roots, legumes, cereals, etc.) or cash crops (cocoa, coffee, rubber trees).

This diversity of consumption and production methods impacts the creation and selection schemes which aim at proposing varieties able to respond to production constraints (pests, soil fertility, drought stress...) and to consumer expectations (organoleptic quality, cooking skills...), by diversifying the desired ideotypes. Moreover, as plantains are sensitive to pseudo-stem breakage and uprooting, resistance to lodging and all its components (plant size, soil pests resistance, root anchorage and sucker production) are particularly important criteria to ensure the sustainability of crops.

Our breeding strategies, developed mainly in partnership with our Cameroonian partners (CARBAP/IRAD), aim to conserve or reproduce the specific genetic structures of plantain based on phylogenetically related genetic resources. To this end, two parallel approaches are being developed: i) the use of diploid or tetraploid progenitors related to plantain and ABB cultivars close to this type; ii) the identification of the best combining abilities between two diploids derived from plantain, one of which, doubled by a colchicine treatment, is a diplo-gametes donor.

To achieve this, we rely on our experience in plantain breeding including knowledge of available genetic resources (natural or improved), plant biology (especially reproduction) and recent advances in genome structure.

Genetic resources

Access to a wide range of genetic resources is supporting our breeding program: the CARBAP/IRAD field collection, based in Njombé (Cameroon), including 700 varieties, of which a unique collection of 150 plantain varieties, and the in vitro genebank from the International Transit Center (ITC) based in Belgium.

In addition to these landraces, a collection of small-size improved genitors, resistant to the main pathogens, and showing good level of residual fertility, is available as the result of the pre-breeding program conducted in partnership in Cameroon since the early 2000s.

Integrated viral sequences

The presence of infectious eBSVs in M. balbisiana genomes has long hampered their use in breeding program. This situation has led us to give up to valuable traits provided by these genomes, such as drought resistance and soil anchorage. The better understanding of interspecific hybrid meiosis, the elucidation of the allelic structure of infectious eBSVs and the development of molecular markers specific to infectious eBSV alleles have allowed us to overcome most of these obstacles. Indeed, since eBSVs are pseudogenic, recombination between A and B chromosomes during meiosis has allowed us to develop triploid AAB hybrids free of infectious sequences with CARBAP.

Key publications

Baurens, F.-C., et al. (2018). "Recombination and Large Structural Variations Shape Interspecific Edible Bananas Genomes." Molecular Biology and Evolution 36(1): 97-111.

Noumbissié, G. B., et al. (2016). "Chromosome segregation in an allotetraploid banana hybrid (AAAB) suggests a translocation between the A and B genomes and results in eBSV-free offsprings." Molecular Breeding 36(4): 38.

Tomekpe, K., et al. (2004). "A review of conventional improvement strategies for Musa." Infomusa 13(2): 2-6.

Umber, M., et al. (2016). "Marker-assisted breeding of Musa balbisiana genitors devoid of infectious endogenous Banana streak virus sequences." Molecular Breeding 36(6): 74.