Molecular characterization of Red banana and its somaclonal variant: a comprehensive study

The prized Red banana, selected for superior qualities, demands strong genetic uniformity for successful clonal propagation and preservation. Ensuring this uniformity early in the growth of in vitro Red banana plants is essential, as gene mutations and chromosome rearrangements during tissue culture can jeopardize both cloning and germplasm conservation. In this situation, molecular markers play a pivotal role in confirming genetic stability. Thus the study aims to discover a marker that identifies tissue-cultured Red bananas from their virescent variants during initial sub-culturing. A marker linked to anthocyanin has been identified which effectively differentiated Red bananas from virescent variants and it was further validated in various banana cultivars, ornamental Musa species and their interspecific hybrids. The PCR-based marker showed remarkable specificity, discerning Red bananas from virescent variants during tissue culture. It also distinguished green and red offspring, cutting time and resource costs, and shortening the banana breeding cycle.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13205-023-03868-6.

Occurrence of Banana bract mosaic virus on Musa ornata Roxb based hybrids in India

Musa ornata, wild species of banana is being used as a cut flower, potted plants and for landscape gardening etc., They are also being utilized in banana hybridization programmes for introgressing pest and disease tolerant traits into banana cultivars in addition to the development of inter specific ornamental banana hybrids. Symptoms of banana bract mosaic virus (BBrMV) was observed in the bracts of interspecific M. ornata based hybrid developed using another wild species i.e., Musa rubra Kurz at ICAR-National Research Centre for Banana (NRCB), Tiruchirapalli. Presence of the virus in the bracts, leaves and roots of symptomatic plants was confirmed through triple antibody sandwich enzyme linked immunosorbent assay with BBrMV monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies. BBrMV HC-Pro (1370 bp), CP (900 bp) and VPg (570 bp) genes were amplified from the infected bracts using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction with BBrMV respective gene primers. The amplicons of these three genes were cloned and sequenced. Blastn analysis revealed that HC-Pro, VPg and CP gene sequences has 97.67%, 97.72% and 99.67% similarity with the respective gene sequences of BBrMV infecting banana. Phylogenetic analysis clustered the test isolate with other BBrMV isolates of banana and other hosts based on CP and HC-Pro and VPg gene sequences. The virus is transmitted through Pentalonia nigronervosa and the transmitted plants expressed symptoms under glass house conditions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of BBrMV on ornamental M. ornata hybrid in India and its transmission occurs through Pentalonia nigronervosa.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13337-022-00788-6.

Strengthening of banana breeding through data digitalization

Improvement of edible bananas (a triploid and sterile crop) through conventional breeding is a challenging task owing to its recalcitrant nature for seed set, prolonged crop duration. In addition, the need of huge man power at different stages of progeny development and evaluation often leads to mislabeling, poor data management and loss of vital data. All this can be overcome by the application of advanced information technology source. This ensured secure and efficient data management such as storage, retrieval and data analysis and further could assist in tracking the breeding status in real time. Thus, a user-friendly web-based banana breeding tracker (BBT) has been developed using MySQL database with Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP). This BBT works on all operating systems with access to multiple users from anywhere at any time. Quick responsive (QR) code labels can be generated by the tracker, which can be decoded using QR scanner. Also for each and every updated progress in breeding stages, a new QR code can be generated, which in turn reduce labeling errors. Moreover, the tracker has additional tools to search, sort and filter the data from the data sets for efficient retrieval and analysis. This tracker is being upgraded with phenotypic and genotypic data that will be made available in the public domain for hastening the banana improvement program.

Augmentation of Water Resources Potential and Cropping Intensification Through Watershed Programs

  This paper presents the biophysical impact of various interventions made under watershed development programs, in terms of the creation of additional water resources, and resultant changes in land use and cropping patterns in the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh State, India. Both primary and secondary data gathered from randomly selected watersheds and their corresponding control villages were used in this study. Analysis revealed that emphasis was given primarily to the creation of water resources potential during implementation of the programs, which led to augmentation of surface and groundwater availability for both irrigation and non-agricultural purposes. In addition, other land based interventions for soil and moisture conservation, plantation activities, and so forth, were taken up on both arable and nonarable land, which helped to improve land slope and land use, cropping pattern, agricultural productivity, and vegetation cover.

Development, identification and validation of CAPS marker for SHELL trait which governs dura, pisifera and tenera fruit forms in oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.)

The oil palm fruit forms (dura, pisifera and tenera) governed by the shell thickness gene (Sh) plays a major role in identification of fruit type and also influences palm oil yield. Identification of desired fruit type is a major asset to the breeders and oil palm workers for applications in breeding, seed certification and to reduce time, space and money spent on identification of fruit form. In the present study, we developed Sh gene specific primer pairs and bulk segregant analysis was done using 300 genomic and 8 genic SSR markers. We identified one cleaved amplified polymorphic site (CAPS) marker for differentiation of oil palm fruit type which produced two alleles (280 and 250bp) in dura genotypes, three alleles in tenera genotypes (550, 280, and 250bp) and one allele in pisifera genotypes (550bp). The shell allele sequencing results showed that two SNPs were present, of which SNP2 contributed for variation of fruit forms. The nucleotide ‘A’ was present in only dura genotypes, where as ‘T’ was present only in pisifera genotypes, which in turn led to the change of amino acid lysine to aspargine. The identified CAPS marker was validated on 300 dura, 25 pisifera and 80 tenera genotypes, 80 dura/ pisifera cross progenies and 60 lines of tenera/ tenera cross progeny. Association mapping of marker data with phenotypic data of eight oil yield related traits resulted in identification of seven significant QTLs by GLM approach, four by MLM approach at a significant threshold (P) level of 0.001. Significant QTLs were identified for fruit to bunch and oil to bunch traits, which explained R² of 12.9% and 11.5% respectively. The CAPS marker used in the present study facilitate selection and timely distribution of desirable high yielding tenera sprouts to the farmers instead of waiting for 4–5 years. This saves a lot of land, time and money which will be a major breakthrough to the oil palm community.

Genetic diversity and association mapping of bacterial blight and other horticulturally important traits with microsatellite markers in pomegranate from India

This genetic diversity study aimed to estimate the population structure and explore the use of association mapping strategies to identify linked markers for bacterial resistance, growth and fruit quality in pomegranate collections from India. In total, 88 accessions including 37 cultivated types were investigated. A total of 112 alleles were amplified by use of 44 publicly available microsatellites for estimating molecular genetic diversity and population structure. Neighbor-joining analysis, model-based population structure and principal component analysis corroborated the genetic relationships among wild-type and cultivated pomegranate collections from India. Our study placed all 88 germplasm into four clusters. We identified a cultivated clade of pomegranates in close proximity to Daru types of wild-type pomegranates that grow naturally near the foothills of the Himalayas. Admixture analysis sorted various lineages of cultivated pomegranates to their respective ancestral forms. We identified four linked markers for fruit weight, titratable acidity and bacterial blight severity. PGCT001 was found associated with both fruit weight and bacterial blight, and the association with fruit weight during both seasons analyzed was significant after Bonferroni correction. This research demonstrates effectiveness of microsatellites to resolve population structure among the wild and cultivar collection of pomegranates and future use for association mapping studies.