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Posted on 06/20/2025 6:17:12 AM PDT by Red Badger
A new genome mapping model uncovered 62 key trait loci in bananas, overcoming chromosomal barriers and aiding future crop improvement across complex plant genomes.
Bananas are a dietary staple for millions of people, but their cultivation faces serious threats due to limited genetic diversity and significant breeding challenges. In a major scientific breakthrough, researchers examined more than 2,700 triploid banana hybrids to uncover the genetic basis of 24 important traits related to yield, plant structure, and fruit quality. By using a high-resolution SNP dataset along with an adapted genome-wide association study (GWAS) model, the team identified 62 genomic regions associated with these traits, known as quantitative trait loci (QTLs).
Many of these QTLs would have gone undetected using conventional methods because of the large chromosomal rearrangements found in banana genomes. These findings provide a valuable genetic roadmap for improving banana varieties and offer new strategies for breeding crops with complex genomes.
Breeding bananas is notoriously difficult. Most commercial bananas are sterile triploids, which means they reproduce without seeds and have limited genetic recombination, along with long and slow growth cycles. Further complicating breeding efforts, many banana varieties contain large chromosomal rearrangements that interfere with inheritance patterns and make it difficult to identify trait-linked genes.
Although there are thousands of banana cultivars globally, production is dominated by just a few, such as the widely grown ‘Cavendish’, making the entire crop susceptible to pests and environmental changes.
While GWAS has revolutionized genetic research in many crops, it has been less effective in bananas due to these genomic barriers. As global food systems face mounting challenges, understanding and addressing the complex genetics of bananas has become more urgent. To tackle this, researchers focused on developing more effective models for identifying useful genetic traits.
(Excerpt) Read more at scitechdaily.com ...
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I’m jealous….
Yikes!
Looks like it is still going to take us a long time to learn that desirable genetic traits for human consumption are not the same as desirable genetic traits for the food source. In fact, they can conflict with each other.
Is there anything left that is NOT GMO?
Ala the, 'Irish Potato Famine.' Great! First it was the Irish nere'-do-wells* coming to our shores and now we're going to be overrun with starving Monkeys!
*Relax, Francis. Just kidding. I've got some 'Irish' in me - Bailey's! LOL!
I wonder if Red Bananas can cross with yellow bananas?...............
It’s gonna be a sudden craze.
The one I found was connected to a bunch of about six or seven and the others were all normal sized.....
I have several banana trees in the back yard but they never make any because it takes 18 months and the frost kills them back to the ground every winter...................
Girthy!
What about pointed sticks?
I want to know where that banana came from in the first pic the boy is eating! It is huge!..................
A mutant!
Next time I go to Aldi….I keep forgetting to buy some. This should help me remember!
It's going to be the very next phase!"
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