Truth in Bananas
After years in deep storage in Belgium, hundreds of banana
plants have been sent back to tropical fields for a thorough health
check and to ensure that they really are what they appear to
be.
"This is part of our commitment to taking care of bananas
and plantains in trust for humanity," said Emile Frison,
Director General of the International Plant Genetic Resources
Institute (IPGRI). The IPGRI-INIBAP genebank at Katholieke
Universiteit Leuven is a Global Centre of Excellence for
cryopreservation. In addition to more than 900 samples of banana
and plantain in tissue culture, it also has 545 varieties deep
frozen for extra-long storage.
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Photo: IPGRI/CARBAP
Dr Kodjo Tomekpe, Director General of CARBAP, with one of the
plantain varieties in the collection.
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Long-term storage can result in changes to a plant's DNA,
and labels and names can also get mixed up. As part of a general
upgrading of genebank facilities within the CGIAR, the IPGRI-INIBAP
genebank at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven regenerated whole banana
plants from stored test-tube plantlets and deep-frozen cell
cultures. Plants were grown in a Belgian greenhouse, multiplied,
and shipped off to research institutes in Africa, Central America
and Southeast Asia. There, experts compared the rejuvenated bananas
with ones that had not been stored, to see whether they had
changed.
"Most had not, which was gratifying," said Richard
Markham, director of IPGRI's INIBAP network. "A few had,
but now that we know we can take steps to deal with that."
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In addition to subtle genetic changes, a few varieties had the
wrong name as a result of traveling between different collection
centres. "It's a bit like Chinese whispers," Markham
said, "and again, there were no huge problems, but it is good
to have reliable information."
Many of the varieties of interest to Africa were assessed at the
African Regional Centre for Banana and Plantain (CARBAP) in
Cameroon, whose director, Dr Kodjo Tomekpe, is an experienced
banana breeder and taxonomist. A recent meeting at CARBAP to
evaluate the rejuvenated bananas brought together experts on this
vital species, who left rejuvenated by the prospects for improving
the contribution bananas and plantains can make to the livelihoods
of poor farmers in Africa.
The final step in the rejuvenation and validation exercise is to
ensure that fresh samples of the varieties, true-to-type and
accurately named, are put back into storage at the genebank in
Leuven. One of the prioject's outputs will be a strategy for
the conservation of banana and plantain in Africa, part of a Global
Strategy for Musa Conservation. The banana strategy is one of
several strategies that The Global Crop Diversity Trust is
supporting to guide the allocation of resources to the most
important and needy crop diversity collections.
The global strategy gives us a sound platform for long-term
conservation and use," said Markham, "but African farmers
and enterprises will be the ones who really benefit."
Further information:
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