Memorandum of Project Formulation Meetingfor “Disease Resistance in Banana”-FNCA Mutation Breeding ProjectSeptember 29-30, 2003
Manila, the Philippines

On September 29 and 30, 2003, the Program Formulation Meeting was held in Manila, thePhilippines on “Disease Resistance in Banana” under the framework of FNCA Mutation Breeding
Project. Project Leaders and specialists from five countries, i.e. Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, thePhilippines and Vietnam attended the Meeting, and discussed how to organize the research work
effectively.
Dr. Desiree M. Hautea of the Institute of Plant Breeding, UP Los Banos, presented the paper“Status of banana R&D in the Philippines” and also agreed to participate in this new project.
In the Meeting, the present status of banana breeding research was presented by eachcountry. The summary of each country report is as follows,Indonesia:
Two main diseases have decreased banana production in Indonesia. These diseases are
Fusarium oxysporum fp. cubense and banana blood disease (BBD). Mutagenesis is considered as
appropriate alternative method to induce resistance. Tissue culture has been initiated on banana cv
Pisang barangan and Pisang tanduk.
Malaysia:Collaborative research efforts in Malaysia between research institutions, universities,
private sectors and international agencies have produced varieties with improved agronomic
characters and developed useful techniques. It is proposed that similar project is undertaken todevelop Fusarium resistant varieties for Pisang berangan (AAA) and Pisang rastali (AAB) by
mutation induction and also utilizing the resistant traits found in wild banana.

The Philippines:
The report presented a brief overview of the banana industry in the Philippines and thestatus of banana R & D activities in crop improvement for resistance to banana diseases. ThePhilippines is one of the top ten producers and exporters of bananas in the world. The banana
industry is central to the economy of the Philippines. It is one of the top export earners, the source of
livelihood of 75% of small-scale banana farmers and contributes to nutrition of 73% of the 80
million Filipinos. Although banana production has been increasing over the years, the yield has
remained below the world’s average because of production constraints primarily due to pests anddiseases and post-harvest losses. Virus diseases particularly banana bunchy top virus has caused1

production losses as high as 100% especially in small-scale banana farms. Resistant sources are notavailable and hybridization in banana has been extremely difficult due to sterility and polyploidy.
Thus, current efforts in banana improvement have focused on the use of non-conventional
technologies like mutation breeding, tissue culture and transformation. The accomplishments andfuture plans of these on-going researches were discussed.
Vietnam:
The report indicated the importance of banana in the farming system, and presented anoverview of research on banana pests and diseases. A total of 26 major banana diseases wereidentified, consisting of 3 viral diseases, 17 fungal diseases, 1 bacterial disease, 1 nematode disease
and 4 other diseases. The isolates of 42 FOC collected from 7 provinces (and cities) in the north ofVietnam belong to Race 1 (VCGs 0124, 0124/5, 0125). So far, Race 4 has not been detected in
Vietnam. The Cavendish group (AAA) has not been infected by FOC yet. For these reasons,Vietnam is participating in the FNCA Banana Project for banana improvement on BTV and FOC
disease resistance.
The goal of this cooperative work is to acquire the resistant mutant lines to the specificFusarium and virus diseases. Furthermore, other outcomes expected from this work, are to isolate
the genes related to the disease resistance and to analyze the role of genes if the favorable mutants
could be obtained.
This FNCA project complements the IAEA Project on Banana, through exchange of
information and enhancement of regional cooperation between participating countries.
Malaysia accepted to be the leading country in this research work and propose thiscooperative program to the coming FNCA Coordinators Meeting in Tokyo.

On the second day, the participants visited the Institute of Plant Breeding (IPB), UPLB.
The participants were briefed on the current researches on banana breeding and visited thegermplasm collection, field evaluation of FHIA hybrids and local cultivars, biotechnology, tissue
culture and plant pathology laboratories. All the participants expressed their sincere gratitude to thestaff of UPLB.
After the presentation of the present status of banana breeding research, the details of thisproject were discussed and decided as follows:
Participating Countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan
Mutation Induction: gamma rays
Objective Plant: Banana (Malaysia-Pisang berangan and Pisang rastali; Indonesia-Pisang
barangan and Pisang tanduk; Vietnam-chuoi tay and chuoi tieu; the Philippines- lakatan andlatundan)
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Target Diseases: Fusarium oxysporium f. sp. cubense (race 1 and race 4), (Vietnam,Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia)
Virus sp. banana bunchy Top virus (BBTV), (the Philippines and Vietnam)
Banana Blood Disease (BBD) (Indonesia)
Working Periods: FY2004 - FY2008
Working Plan of MRP-3 “Disease Resistance in Banana”
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Induction of embryogenic callus from male inflorescence or otherexplants
Optimisation of regeneration frequency from embryogenic callus
Determination of optimum dose for embryogenic callus
Validation and characterisation of base line information of pathogen
Annual meeting
Irradiation of materials (I)Regeneration and selection of plantlets from irradiated materials (I)Micropropagation of selected mutant lines (I)Induction of embryogenic callus from male inflorescence or otherexplants (II)Optimisation of regeneration frequency from embryogenic callus (II)Annual meeting
Irradiation of materials (II)Regeneration and selection of plantlets from irradiated materials (II)Micropropagation of selected mutant lines (II)Field evaluation of material (I) against target diseases
Annual meeting (Mid-term Report)

FY 20071.
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Field evaluation of material (II) against target diseases
Performance evaluation of selected resistant/tolerant lines (I)Annual meeting

FY 2008

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Performance evaluation of selected mutant resistant/tolerant lines (II)Annual meeting (Final Report)

FY 2004

FY 2005

FY 2006

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