Characterization of the banana germplasm collection from Rubona-Rwanda

The banana germplasm collection at Rubona at the Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Rwanda (I.S.A.R) contains endemic and introduced genomic groups, such as: AA, AB, AAB, ABB, AAAB and AAA. The most important of these genomic groups is AAA within subgroup Lujugira-Mutika. A total of 90 accessions were characterized and six characters of the fingers (length, width, weight, green life, post-green life and length/width ratio) were subjected to principal component analysis (PCA). The cooking and beer clones were separated. The cooking clones were further grouped into three clone sets: Musakala, Nakabululu and one that constitute Nakitembe and Nfuuka clone sets. The AAB genomic group was separated from AAA, AB and ABB genomic groups. This study suggests that the classification system for Highland bananas used in Uganda may be applied to classify banana germplasm of Rwanda.