Exemplifying the breeding potential of ornamental banana hybrids through palynological studies

Abstract

Ornamental bananas (OBs) are known for their bright colour, bract, and attractive foliage with significant ornamental value. The OBs are tolerant to abiotic (cold and drought) and biotic stresses (pests and diseases), having immense scope for studying their breeding potential and the development of two hybrids from the cross of Karpooravalli (ABB) × M. acuminata subsp. zebrina (ZB) has sparked curiosity to explore the Ornamental Banana Hybrids (OBHs). Therefore, the present study explored the breeding potential of OBHs and wild species (M. acuminata subsp. zebrina [ZB]). Among these, maximum pollen viability (PV), pollen germination (PG), pollen output/anther (PO/A) and pollen size (PS) were recorded in ‘ZB’ (99.60%), ‘OZ2’ (64.70%), ‘OR14’ (2859.80) and ‘OV1’ (115.50 μ), respectively. Boxplot was performed to study the distribution pattern of all three cross combinations, which provided a good result with larger variability in ‘OZ’ followed by ‘RZ’ for PV, PG and PS. In contrast, higher variability for PO/A was obtained in ‘OR’. A positive correlation was recorded between PV, PG and PS, whereas PO/A was negatively correlated with all the attributes studied. Hierarchical cluster analysis categorized the OBHs and wild species into three clusters, with clusters I, II and III exhibiting the highest PG (%), PV (%) and PO/A, respectively. No significant difference was observed in the case of PS. Hence, these OBHs can be utilized as a pollen source for breeding and developing a novel hybrids