*Department of Biological Sciences, University of Malawi, Chancellor College, Zomba, Malawi
**NEPAD African Biosciences Initiative, Policy Alignment and Programme Development Directorate, NEPAD Agency, Republic of South Africa
Online published on 21 November, 2013.
Global annual banana and plantain production estimated at 100 million tonnes is generally insufficient given an ever-increasing population especially for regions where bananas and plantains are a staple food. Manipulation of the genetics of bananas through various methods such as conventional and mutation breeding, cytogenetics, genomics, genetic transformation and application of tissue culture techniques and morphological, biochemical and molecular markers hold promise to improve production.
Bananas and plantains, morphological and molecular markers, breeding, cytogenetics, genetic transformation
