In vivo and in vitro germination of Musa violascens and Musa borneensis seeds

Musa is a large perennial monocotyledonous herbaceous plant genus in Musaceae family native to the Indo-Malesia, Asian and Australian tropics. It has five taxonomic sections with two of them contain edible bananas. Banana and plantain are considered as an important food crop for people as it ranked fourth globally after rice, wheat and maize. Banana is either consumed raw as fruits or cooked, steamed, boiled, grilled, baked, and fried to make into chips, dessert, snack and food like curry and soup. The plant can be used as silage, rope, cordage, garlands, shelter, clothing, smoking materials and ceremonial and religious uses (Nelson et al., 2006). The edible cultivated varieties were derived from the hybridization between two wild species namely Musa acuminata Cola and Musa Balbisiana Cola which gave rise to different genomic groupings namely AA, AAA, AB, ABB/BBB, ABBB (Hakkinen and Hong, 2007Suhana et al., 2012). The increasing areas of banana plantations in tropical countries are threatened by the continuous pests and diseases problems such as the appearance and spread of the virulent form of Sigatoka leaf spot disease. Thus, awareness has been increased among banana breeders in order to produce new cultivated varieties with the disease-resistant characteristics (Pancholi et al., 1995). However, breeding programs are difficult to be done in cultivated Musa. This is due to the nature of fruits from cultivated Musa species which are normally sterile and very low fertility. Cultivated Musa species are known as its parthenocarpic characteristics where fruits are produced without pollination and fertilization thus seeds are not form (Nelson et al., 2006). (Copied from article)