Application of Genomics to Support Innovative Banana Breeding Programs

There is an urgent need for a wider diversity of genetically improved banana cultivars with more robust disease resistance, increased productivity and better adaptability to a large range of growing conditions. New breeding programs, which aim to broad the current genetic basis, are based on crosses between plants derived from wild and cultivated diploid germplasm. However the synthesis of triploid improved hybrids is facing many difficulties due to the low level of fertility of cultivated accessions, the low number of sexual recombination events and the absence of knowledge on heredity of Musa polyploids and on the genetic factors involved in important agricultural traits. In addition, the accessions of M. balbisiana contain in nuclear genome integrated viral sequence (EPRV, endogenous pararetrovirus) of Banana Streak Virus which hamper synthesis of new interspecific hybrids between M. acuminata and M. balbisiana species. In relation with banana sequencing, it will be shown how the generation of molecular data can be used to overcome these difficulties and to drive innovative cross strategies as well as it contributes to the development of new tools for implementation of marker assisted selection in mono and interspecific crosses.