Conventional plant breeding is the development or improvement of cultivars using conservative tools for manipulating plant genome within the natural genetic boundaries of the species which is aimed at producing plant that are superior in terms of quantity and quality than the pre-existing ones. However, the success of conventional plant breeding depends completely on the fertility status of the two parent plants involved in the hybridization program. Plantain and Banana are monoecious, sterile and parthenocarpic which leads to the production of fruit without seeds. The genetic breeding of plantain and Banana through hybridization is limited by the occurrence of sterility in most cultivars resulting in low production or absence of seeds. Studies are needed to better understand the processes involved in both fertility and sterility. Cultivated Musa species are seedless, Seed set after pollination is an indication of fertility of both male and female parents which can be used to develop hybrids of commercial varieties and wild relatives. The main objective of the present research which was investigated at the Teaching and Research Farm of the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, Nigeria to identify the fertility status of seven (7) USTPX plantain hybrids which includes USTPx/01/01, USTPx/01/02, USTPx/01/03, USTPx/01/05, USTPx/01/06, USTPX/01/07 and KM5 using in-situ method of screening for fertility. Different interspecific crosses were made. Result indicates that seven (7) species were fertile apart from USTPX/01/07 as they produced seeds after such different interspecific crosses. Out of the seven cultivars pollinated, six cultivars produced a total of 1748 seeds as female parents except from USTPx/01/07 which do not produce neither seeds nor pollen grains. Out of 1748 seeds, the highest numbers of seeds (1346 and 379 seeds) were obtained from USTPx/01/02 and USTPx/01/01 with a mean of 134.6 and 37.9 as female parents respectively in which USTPx/01/02 shows significant difference (P>0.05) from the other cultivars. The highest and the least number of seeds (1076, 412 and 2 seeds) were obtained using pollens from USTPx/01/01, USTPx/01/02 and USTPx/01/06 as male parents respectively
Keywords: Fertility, Hybridization, hybrid-seeds., in-situ, pollination
