Screening of Banana Hybrids (Phase II) Resistant to Helicotylenchus multicinctus

Banana, (Musa spp.) which is truly a tropical treasure, has been a target of many pests and diseases. Worldwide, nematodes are considered as a detrimental pest of bananas and plantains, for which control measures are urgently required. By damaging the plant root system, nematodes hamper the intake of water and nutrients and consequently affect the growth and fruit production. Helicotylenchus multicinctus is considered to be an endoparasite in banana. It completes its life cycle within the root cortex where both the sexes, all juvenile stages and eggs can be found. It produces shallow superficial lesions in banana roots which resemble pustule like eruptions. The breeding work in banana was carried out at Horticultural College and Research Institute, Department of Fruit Crops, TNAU, Coimbatore, India. The existing potential diploids and hybrids were crossed with commercial triploids to develop primary tetraploids and improved diploids. The developed tetraploids and diploids were screened against H. multicinctus under pot culture and field conditions following INIBAP technical guidelines using Rasthali (AAB, syn.silk) as the susceptible reference cultivar and Pisang Lilin (AA) as the resistant reference cultivar. The hybrid H 531 (Poovan x Pisang Lilin) exhibited resistance, while hybrids H-02-34, H-03-05, H-03-13, H-03-17, H-04-12, H-04-24, NPH-02-01 and H 510 showed tolerance. The role of biochemical contents like total phenols and enzymatic activity like PO, PPO and PAL revealed that they had higher levels of activities in resistant and tolerant genotypes as compared to susceptible and highly susceptible ones. The hybrid H 531 (AAB) took the shortest duration of 213.00 days for shooting and recorded a moderate bunch weight of 13.50 kg.