The breeding team at National Banana Research Program is developing a product profile to enable release of banana hybrids that precisely meet farmer expectations.
A happy banana farmer appreciating his produce.
According to Dr. Ivan Kabiita Arinaitwe, the head of the NARO Banana Breeding programme, this product profile will help release banana hybrids that precisely meet the farmer expectations. “These hybrids will be having added value from the previously released ones.”
Being guided by the product profile in breeding, he says the team is now able to determine the hybrids that are more acceptable to the farmer than before.
“For example, if the precious ones were targeting black sigatoka and acceptability of like 80%, this time we are targeting black sigatoka, weevil resistance, nematode resistance and acceptability of above 90%,” says Dr. Arinaitwe.
Since 1990’s, NARO has bred and released seven banana (matooke) hybrids with high yielding coupled with resistances to common pests and diseases. These include Kabana6H, Kabana7H, NAROBan1(M9), NAROBan2(M19), NAROBan3(M20), NAROBan4(M25) and NAROBan5(M27).
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