MALE FLOWER CHARACTERISTICS OF INDUCED TETRAPLOID, MIXOPLOID, AND DIPLOID BANANA MUSA ACUMINATA (AA) CV. “PISANG REJANG”

Abstract

The banana cultivar “Pisang Rejang” (Musa AA “Pisang Rejang”) is Fusarium wilt resistant and therefore important for banana breeding. Tetraploid (4x) and mixoploid (2x+4x) plants of this cultivar have been induced with oryzalin, and crosses of these two ploidy levels resulted in a triploid hybrid (3x) plant. The availability of these various ploidy levels needs to be accompanied by data on their reproductive biology for their efficient utilization for breeding. This study characterized male flowers concerning qualitative and quantitative morphology, pollen viability, pollen size, nectar volume, nectar Brix index, and acidity level of those different ploidy levels. Observations indicated no differences in qualitative morphological traits, such as, shape and color, but for quantitative morphological traits, such as, size, distinction existed among the different ploidy levels. The triploid plant has huge flower parts in all the quantitative morphological traits, except compound tepal width, followed by the tetraploid, diploid, and mixoploid. Variations also occurred in pollen viability, pollen size, and nectar characters from each level of ploidy. Pollen viability is the highest for the diploid plant, while the tetraploid plant produces bigger pollen than the diploid. The triploid plant produced a low percentage of viable pollen. The study findings indicate that ploidy level affects the flower's quantitative morphological characteristics, pollen viability, and pollen size, but not the flower's qualitative morphological characteristics.