• Question: how are bananas cloned??

    Asked by andreaslevin to Enda, Jean, Kate, Kev, Tim on 17 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Tim Downing

      Tim Downing answered on 17 Nov 2012:

      Hi Andreas,

      Banana plants don’t need seeds because like you say they are clones. This means that they are produced asexually. At a cellular level, this means when the banana cells are dividing, no mixing of parental types take place and the each generation is derived directly from a single parent. Mutations can occur along the way, so they are not all genetically identical.

      Farmers make new banana plants by transferring branches near the plant stem to new patches of soil. These branches develop into new banana plants. However, in parts of south and east Asia, farmers still grow natural banana plants that are not clones and create new banana plants using traditional methods with fertilised seeds.

      Clones are not necessarily bad, most life is reproduced in this same – bacteria for example. Many plants can opt for both cloned offspring or those mixed with other plants, depending on what related species are nearby. Even animals do this too – several lizard species clone themselves!

      Tim

    • Photo: Jean Bourke

      Jean Bourke answered on 19 Nov 2012:

      The farmer uses a bit of the underground banana stem.

      A modern method involves tissue culture, whereby it is grown in a lab. This is preferred as it helps avoid transferring diseases to the new plant.

      The major challenge with cultivating bananas this way is that if the parent plant has a disease the new plant will have it too. Over time the diseases can really build up, killing off the plant. Plants have an immune system but it is not as complicated or effective as our own so they have a lot of trouble eradicating diseases and generally aim to wall off disease and prevent it spreading throughout the plant.

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