Table 3 Recent activities within the five MusaNet thematic groups, many of which are discussed in this chapter
From: Safeguarding and using global banana diversity: a holistic approach
Thematic Group | Activity |
|---|---|
Conservation | Technical Guidelines for the Safe Movement of Musa Germplasm (Thomas et al. 2015); Virus Ring Test training for National Agricultural Research Systems to detect banana viruses; development of a strategy to distribute accessions with endogenous Banana Streak Virus |
Diversity | Collecting missions to Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, West New Britain, Bougainville, Cook Islands and Samoa (Sardos et al. 2017, 2018, 2019a, b); the Taxonomic Reference Collection; the development of minimum descriptor lists for Musa, Plantains and East African Highland Bananas; Regional workshops on field characterization |
Evaluation | Evaluation protocols for resistance of drought, black streak virus and Fusarium Wilt; IMTP evaluation trials |
Genomics | Annual workshop at the Plant Animal Genome conference; genotyping including resequencing of ITC accessions; sequencing of reference genomes for Musa acuminata subspecies |
Information | Development of mobile applications for morphological description and for taxonomic identification; iNaturalist for crowd-sourced with the banana natural biodiversity mapping project; Updates data and features for information systems |