ABSTRACT
Despite parthenocarpy and female sterility, the genus Musa portrays a wealth of alleles that govern important agronomic as well as consumer traits. Hybridization of diploid Musa species, followed by recombination events and mutations, generated enough genetic diversity to allow domestication of diploid cultivars bearing parthenocarpic fruit. Sexual polyploidization resulted in almost-sterile triploid cultivars, which multiplied through sucker propagules in the centers of origin. Banana and plantain breeders should quantify additive and nonadditive components of genetic variance to choose appropriate selection methods to improve quantitative traits. Parthenocarpy entails the development of ovaries into fruit without fertilization. The mechanism of the parthenocarpic trait was extensively studied in various fruit crops. Black leaf streak disease is a fungal disease causing the most serious economic, environmental, and public health issues in banana-growing areas. The prospects of elucidating the biochemical and genetic mechanisms of genes that govern important traits in the Musa genome will undoubtedly accelerate breeding in the postgenomic era.
