ABSTRACT
The banana and plantain we eat today are sterile cultivars that evolved from the wild seeded diploid parents thousands of years ago (De Langhe et al., 2009; Perrier et al., 2011). Banana has been cultivated by mankind in early agricultural practices due in part to the fact that banana is vegetatively propagated, with evidence of domestic cultivation 7000 years ago in Papua New Guinea (Denham et al., 2003). When a superior selection was identified the plant was easily moved and propagated clonally, simply by taking and planting a sucker. For centuries banana and plantains have been one of the most widely consumed fruits, both as a staple food and as one of the main fruit crops of world trade.
