ABSTRACT
Bananas and plantains (Musa spp.) are among the most important fruit crops of the tropics (FAO, 1999). These giant perennial herbs grow as clumps with a number of side shoots or suckers arising from the main rhizome. In commercial plantations, suckers are regularly pruned, leaving one shoot to replace the parent plant (Gowen, 1988). The need for a suitable root architecture in Musa arises from the considerable resource uptake and anchorage demands of banana plants, combined with the importance of biotic and abiotic interactions taking place in the rhizosphere. It is a case for applied and multidisciplinary research. Since the first report on Musa root architecture at the beginning of the last century (Fawcett, 1921), much has been accomplished in various aspects of the morphologic, physiologic, and agronomic aspects of root structure and development.
