Efficient phenotyping of banana (Musa spp.) germplasm for resistance to five biotic constraints using Partially replicated (P-rep) design

Reagan Kanaabi, Gerald Mwanje, Charles Serebe, Happyness Mpanda, Kennedy Jomanga, Brigitte Uwimana, Marnik Vuylsteke, Allan Brown, Rony Swennen and Gloria Valentine Nakato

PLOS ONE, 2026, vol. 21, issue 10, 1-19

Abstract: Banana breeding programs prioritize improving yield with resistance to biotic stresses while maintaining fruit quality. This study focused on identifying genotypes with resistance to five major biotic constraints including Cosmopolites sordidus, Radopholus similis, banana Xanthomonas wilt, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense – Race 1 and Pseudocercospora fijiensis. A diverse set of diploid and tetraploid genotypes was phenotyped under controlled screenhouse and field conditions to identify potential sources of. A partially replicated (P-rep) design, was used to accommodate unequal plant availability arising from asynchronous multiplication. P-rep design enabled robust phenotypic comparisons and identification of genotypes expressing resistance to multiple biotic stresses. Several diploid genotypes exhibited resistance to multiple constraints, highlighting their potential as parental lines for resistance introgression and broadening the genetic base for banana improvement. Leveraging on the efficiency and precision of the P-rep experimental design, these findings accelerate the phenotyping of genotypes.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0361182 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 61182&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0361182

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0361182

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().