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Why so many different bananas |
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Scientists believe that bananas were among the first plants to be domesticated some 10,000 years ago, giving farmers plenty of time to work with nature and come up with more than 1000 varieties.
Meet the parents
Although some 30 species of wild Musa have been identified from the Pacific to India, the majority of today’s bananas are related to either Musa acuminata or Musa balbisiana or both.
The big bang of domestication
Domestication diverted the original function of the banana, which is to deliver seeds. Once in a while, fruits with more flesh than seeds appeared by natural mutation and were nurtured by farmers.
The age of diversity
When acuminata and balbisiana bananas crossed paths, carried by migrating peoples, all sorts of edible varieties were produced. Even though the new varieties were sterile, they continued to change through mutations. By propagating their favorite mutants, farmers created bananas to suit all sorts of tastes and uses.
The birthplace of domesticated bananas?
Domesticated banana plants produce microscopic stones, phytoliths, which are used by archaeologists to look for the places where bananas were domesticated. The oldest remains, estimated to be 7000 years old, have been found in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.
Conserving diversity
The largest collection of bananas in the world is located in Belgium, at the Catholic University of Leuven. Since cultivated bananas do not produce seeds, they are kept as plantlets in test tubes, fed a special diet and maintained under low light and low temperature to slow down their growth.
Preserving identity
Although bananas are among the easiest plants to propagate vegetatively they need to be checked regularly as spontaneous mutations do occasionally occur. Deep-freezing the plantlets avoids the need for culturing them. Scientists have managed to freeze banana plantlets and bring them back unharmed.
Understanding diversity
The natural talents of some banana plants to resist diseases or thrive in marginal environments are increasingly in demand. The traditional way to pick winning varieties is to see which ones perform best under a given set of conditions. A quicker way is to look for strings of DNA that are present only in the plants that have the desired traits.
Reading the genome
To unlock the diversity lurking in wild bananas, a group of scientists was brought together under the umbrella of the Global Musa Genomics Consortium to share the task of sequencing the banana genome of Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana and uncovering the function of their genes. |
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Why bananas matter 