'NARITA 18'

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'NARITA 18' is a high-yielding and disease-resistant hybrid that is related, through its female grandparent, to a group of cooking and beer bananas called East African highland bananas (EAHB). ‘NARITA 18’ is named after NARO and IITA, the institutes that jointly developed the NARITA hybrids1 .

Two crosses were performed to obtain ‘NARITA 18’. The triploid EAHB cultivars 'Kabucuragye' and ‘Enzirabahima’ were both crossed with a wild source of disease resistance. The resulting progenies were then intercrossed to produce the triploid hybrid ‘NARITA 18’ (see Breeding strategy below).

‘NARITA 18’ has been tested on station in Uganda2 and is being evaluated in a broader range of end-users environments (including farmers’ fields), to assess its potential for adoption by farmers and consumers3 . Its primary use is as a cooking type.

Breeding strategy

Pedigree of 'NARITA 18'

‘NARITA 18’ is a secondary triploid obtained by crossing 365K-1 and 660K-14 .

The female parent 365K-1 was obtained by crossing the triploid EAHB cultivar ‘Kabucuragye’ with Calcutta 4, a genebank accession of the diploid wild species Musa acuminata ssp. burmannica, which provided a copy of the so-called A genome. Calcutta 4 provided the resistance to black leaf streak.

The male parent 660K-1 was obtained by crossing the triploid EAHB cultivar ‘Enzirabahima’ with Calcutta 4.

Agronomic performance

The following agronomic data were collected during a preliminary yield trial carried out by IITA and NARO at Namulonge in Central Uganda4 :

Traits	NARITA 18*
Plant height at flowering (cm)	309.0
Pseudostem girth at flowering (cm)	59.5
Time from flowering to harvest (days)	140.7
Bunch weight (kg)	23.2
Number of hands	8.9
Number of fingers	155.7
Fruit circumference (cm)	12.5
Fruit length (cm)	18.3
Number of functional leaves at flowering	12.3
Number of functional leaves at harvest	3.3
Height of tallest sucker at flowering (cm)	182.4
Height of tallest sucker at harvest (cm)	136.0
Youngest leaf spotted at flowering	10.4
Youngest leaf spotted at harvest	3.8
Survival rate (%)	90

Reaction to diseases and pests

The scores for number of functional leaves and youngest leaf spotted at flowering and harvest indicate good resistance to black leaf streak.

References

See also on this website

External links

Official website of Uganda's National Agricultural Research Organization, NARO and its banana research program