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ARS Home » Plains Area » Fort Collins, Colorado » Center for Agricultural Resources Research » Agricultural Genetic Resources Preservation Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #424285
Research Project: Curation and Research to Safeguard and Expand Collections of Plant and Microbial Genetic Resources and Associated Descriptive Information

Location: Agricultural Genetic Resources Preservation Research

Title: Effect of PGRs on in vitro corm growth of Musa acuminata Colla

Author
item Skogerboe, Dianne
item Yeater, Kathleen
item Jenderek, Maria

Submitted to: In Vitro Cellular and Developmental Biology. Plants
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/27/2025
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Banana is a staple food, has a high market value and is consumed globally. The USDA, Agricultural Research Service is charged with maintenance and conservation of genetic resources of the commodity. Improvement of the conservation method is a continuous effort. The current study developed a banana propagation procedure that shortened the time of the material conservation and increased its efficiency.

Technical Abstract: Banana (Musa L.) is a staple food in several countries and is distributed worldwide. The United States maintains a collection of the banana germplasm at the USDA ARS Tropical Agriculture Research Station in Puerto Rico. Long-term preservation of Musa genetic resources is carried out at the ARS National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation in Colorado. Cryopreservation requires a large number of aseptic shoots with 0.5-0.8 cm diameter corms. Normally corms vary in diameter with many outside the ideal size. This study tested the effect of six commonly used plant growth regulators (PGRs) (BA, IAA, IBA, NAA, TDZ and Zeatin) and their concentration in MS medium on the development of corm diameter in two accessions of M. acuminata Colla (TARS 17135 and TARS 17426). After three propagation cycles (each 6 weeks long), the largest number of shoots with corms >5 mm diameter was observed with 4.5 and 6.5 mgL-1 of BA; however, other PGRs produced a similar number of shoots with the corm size. The higher the number of cultures with >5 mm corm diameter the lower the number of test tubes, with this size of cultures, is needed to excise180 shoot tips for applied cryopreservation of an accession.