Identification of banana genotypes resistant to Fusarium wilt race 1 under field and greenhouse conditions

The objectives of this work were to identify banana genotypes resistant to Fusarium wilt race 1 and to estimate the genetic diversity among these genotypes using SSR markers, with the goal of selecting progenitors for future crosses aiming resistance. The experiment was conducted in an artificially infested field with the pathogen and under greenhouse conditions with inoculated plantlets. For the environmental control tests, the genotypes were inoculated with 10 g of inoculum (106 UFC mL−1) distributed in four holes around the plantlets. Disease indices (DI) were calculated for the field and greenhouse experiments, and the area under the disease progress curve (AUDPC) was calculated for the greenhouse experiment. Genotypes resistant to Fusarium wilt race 1 were identified, including four diploids that can be used in crosses with elite susceptible cultivars. The correlation between the DI in the field and greenhouse data was 0.85 (p ≤ 0.001), which allows us to infer about the efficiency of the early selection method. To our knowledge, this is the first work that compares field and greenhouse methodologies to select Musa spp. genotypes resistant to this pathogen. The SSR markers detected genetic variability among the genotypes, which will contribute to improvement strategies to develop Foc resistant cultivars.