Establishment of World Musa Seed Bank

The World Banana Seed Bank's mission is to preserve the genetic diversity of wild bananas by storing their seeds at both the species and population levels. This effort requires a focus on maintaining a diverse collection of seeds from various banana species and their populations. The seed bank is a collaborative initiative involving Meise Botanic Garden and the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT.

Unlike many other crops and their wild relatives, the collection, conservation, and distribution of banana genetic resources are still underdeveloped. Therefore, taxon-specific recommendations are needed to determine the optimal number of seeds to collect, develop sampling strategies that capture broad genetic diversity from different ecogeographical regions and create and maintain backup collections that are not susceptible to genetic depletion from inbreeding. Another challenge is the low and unpredictable germination rates of wild banana seeds, which are influenced by the ripeness of the fruit and storage conditions.

This project will contribute to the development of a fully operational seed bank for the storage and safeguarding of wild bananas in order to make wild Musa genetic resources available for various stakeholders such as smallholders, scientists, breeders, and prebreeders. Main focus of this project will be on the ancestors of our edible bananas but also on other wild Musa species.

Financed by: The Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT