TITLE:
A Method to Predict Banana Pseudostem’s Strength at Seedling Stage
AUTHORS:
Shenghe Chang, Zhengjing Wu, Wei Sun, Lan Qiao, Qi Zeng, Jingyi Zhang, Haiyan Shu
KEYWORDS:
Banana, Lodging, Identifying, Seedling Stage
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology,
Vol.9 No.9,
August
29,
2018
ABSTRACT: Banana industry played important roles in Chinese economics.
Banana production was always affected heavily by typhoon. Selecting new
cultivars with high strength was the basic way to resolve this problem. If the
selecting work was performed at mature stage, it will need large area and much
labor. If this work can be done at seedling stage, this process will be
simplified significantly. We found that banana plants that had high strength at
seedling stage always had high strength at
mature stage. The physical strength of seedling pseudostem was closely
related with pseudostem diameter, lignin content and the expression of
4-coumarate:CoA ligase gene Mu4CL15. Those seedlings whose pseudostem had
bigger diameter, more lignin content and higher expression of Mu4CL15 always
had higher strength to resist lodging. Through screening plants whose
pseudostem had bigger diameter, more lignin content and higher expression of
Mu4CL15, plants with high-strength pseudostem can be selected. Using this
method, thousands of seedlings can be identified in short time. This process does
not need large area and much labor. If this method was applied, the process of
breeding new cultivars of banana with high resistance to lodging will be accelerated.