Relationships between Meiotic Irregularities and Fertility in Diploid and Triploid Musa L.

Abstract

Most of the widely grown banana cultivars are triploids (2n=3x=33). They are characterized by low male and female fertility and/or complete male and female sterility. On the contrary, diploids are generally both male and female fertile. Banana improvement programs use interploidy crosses to introgress useful genes from wild or improved diploids to triploid landraces. This study investigated the effects of meiotic irregularities on the fertility of diploid and triploid Musa accessions. Our results showed that precocious chromosomes movements, lagging chromosomes and univalents were observed in most of the accessions. In general, a higher incidence of univalent formation was related to low pollen fertility and polyspore formation.