Abstract:
Ambul banana is an important fruit crop and popular commercial cultivar in the
wet zone and the intermediate zone in Sri Lanka. The only improved variety
available today is “Nadhe” which is also a local selection o f ‘Mysore’ banana. It
has AAB genome and now it mainly propagated through the micro-propagation.
Important drawback of this micro-propagated banana is the production of off
types in field plantations. Therefore, the current study was focused on
identification of these abnormal features and detection of causes for these
deformities in micro-propagated Ambul banana. Morphological characters were
compared with reference to conventionally propagated healthy plants. Genomic
DNA extracted from leaf tissues of randomly selected eight abnormal plants and
one conventionally propagated healthy plant was amplified by Polymerase Chain
Reaction (PCR) using OPB 07, OPA 16, OPA 18, RAPD primers (Random
Amplified Polymorphic DNA). A micro-propagated Ambul banana plant
showed several morphological differences and primer OPB-07 produced
polymorphic bands in deformed banana plants. These results indicate that, there
are morphological and genetic differences among micro-propagated plants and
conventionally propagated healthy plant.