Abstract
Banana (Musa spp.), a perennial (sub-)tropical crop, suffers from seasonal droughts, which are typical of rain-fed agriculture. This study aimed at understanding the effect of seasonal drought on early growth, flowering and yield traits in bananas grown in the East African highlands. A field experiment was set up in North Tanzania using four genotypes from different geographical origins and two different ploidy levels. The treatments considered were exclusively rain-fed versus rain supplemented with irrigation. Growth in plant girth and leaf area were promising traits to detect the early effect of water deficit. Seasonal drought slowed down vegetative growth, thus significantly decreasing plant girth, plant height and the number of suckers produced when compared to irrigated plants. It also delayed flowering time and bunch maturity and had a negative effect on yield traits. However, the results depended on the genotype and crop cycle and their interaction with the treatments. “Nakitengwa”, an East African highland banana (EAHB; AAA genome group), which is adapted to the region, showed sensitivity to drought in terms of reduced bunch weight and expected yield, while “Cachaco” (ABB genome group) showed less sensitivity to drought but had a poorer yield than “Nakitengwa”. Our study confirms that seasonal drought has a negative impact on banana production in East Africa, where EAHBs are the most predominant type of bananas grown in the region. We also show that a drought-tolerant cultivar not adapted to the East African highlands had a low performance in terms of yield. We recommend a large-scale screening of diploid bananas to identify drought-tolerant genotypes to be used in the improvement of locally adapted and accepted varieties.
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Claims 10
Claim · model-written summary
Growth in plant girth and leaf area were promising traits to detect the early effect of water deficit in bananas.
MusaOrganisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Banana (Musa spp.)”
e1“Growth in plant girth and leaf area were promising traits to detect the early effect of water deficit”
Claim · model-written summary
Seasonal drought significantly decreased plant girth, plant height and the number of suckers compared with irrigated plants.
- Treatment
- Seasonal droughte1
- Outcome
- plant girth, plant height and the number of suckers producede1
- Direction
- decreasinge1
- Comparator
- irrigated plantse1
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Banana (Musa spp.)”
e1“Seasonal drought slowed down vegetative growth, thus significantly decreasing plant girth, plant height and the number of suckers produced when compared to irrigated plants”
Claim · model-written summary
Seasonal drought delayed flowering time and bunch maturity in bananas.
- Treatment
- Seasonal droughte1
- Outcome
- flowering time and bunch maturitye2
- Direction
- delayede2
- Comparator
- irrigated plantse3
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Banana (Musa spp.)”
e1“Seasonal drought slowed down vegetative growth”
e2“It also delayed flowering time and bunch maturity”
e3“compared to irrigated plants”
Claim · model-written summary
Seasonal drought had a negative effect on banana yield traits.
- Treatment
- Seasonal droughte1
- Outcome
- yield traitse2
- Direction
- negative effecte2
- Comparator
- irrigated plantse3
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Banana (Musa spp.)”
e1“Seasonal drought slowed down vegetative growth”
e2“had a negative effect on yield traits”
e3“compared to irrigated plants”
Claim · model-written summary
The effects of drought depended on the genotype and crop cycle and on their interaction with the treatments.
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Banana (Musa spp.)”
e1“the results depended on the genotype and crop cycle and their interaction with the treatments”
Claim · model-written summary
The East African highland banana Nakitengwa showed sensitivity to drought in reduced bunch weight and expected yield.
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Banana (Musa spp.)”
e1““Nakitengwa”, an East African highland banana (EAHB; AAA genome group), which is adapted to the region, showed sensitivity to drought in terms of reduced bunch weight and expected yield”
Claim · model-written summary
The banana Cachaco (ABB genome group) showed less sensitivity to drought than Nakitengwa.
- Material
- Cachacoe1
- Treatment
- droughte1
- Outcome
- sensitivity to droughte1
- Direction
- lesse1
- Comparator
- Nakitengwae1
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Banana (Musa spp.)”
e1““Cachaco” (ABB genome group) showed less sensitivity to drought but had a poorer yield than “Nakitengwa””
Claim · model-written summary
Cachaco had a poorer yield than Nakitengwa.
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Banana (Musa spp.)”
e1““Cachaco” (ABB genome group) showed less sensitivity to drought but had a poorer yield than “Nakitengwa””
Claim · model-written summary
A drought-tolerant cultivar not adapted to the East African highlands had a low yield performance.
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Banana (Musa spp.)”
e1“a drought-tolerant cultivar not adapted to the East African highlands had a low performance in terms of yield”
Claim · model-written summary
The authors recommend a large-scale screening of diploid bananas to identify drought-tolerant genotypes for improving locally adapted varieties.
Verbatim
e0“large-scale screening of diploid bananas to identify drought-tolerant genotypes”
The same questions in other papers
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See all 12 papers →Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.