Estimation of Seasonal, Additive and Non-additive Genetic Components in Diploid Banana (Musa spp.)

This study focuses on improving the efficiency of breeding diploid bananas for important traits such as yield, fruit sizes, and weight. The partitioning of genetic variance into its additive and non-additive components is crucial. This is difficult in most commonly available family structures in banana breeding due to reduced fertility and complications of ploidy. However, the availability of replicated clones of full-sib progeny allows for greater insight into the genetics of perennial diploid banana. Clones of nine full-sib families generated in a factorial mating design consisting of six diploid parthenocarpic female and two wild diploid male banana (Musa spp.) parents were evaluated at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Arusha. Data was collected over two harvests (plant crop and first ratoon) to provide a better understanding of the genetic architecture of key traits and their seasonal influence. Pedigree-based models were fitted to the data to estimate additive, dominance, epistatic variance components and seasonal effects.