Multi-location trial of naturally selected short saba strains and early maturing

In the Philippines, Saba/Cardaba is the most important local banana cultivar and it has become one of the country's emerging export winners when processed as chips. One of the problems besetting the industry is the lack of raw materials for processing since the current cultivars used are tall and bear first fruits after 18-24 months. Selecting cultivars with short stature, high yield and early fruiting may possible, help to address the problem since these cultivars can be planted in higher density and with lesser vulnerability to natural disasters such as typhoons. Having shorter banana plants is very useful since stronger typhoons are expected to occur more frequently in the future due to climate change. In the farmers' field, short cultivars were observed to occur naturally. Collection of short Saba strains with less than four meters were conducted from different banana growing areas in the country. A total of 32 accessions were planted and field evaluated at UPLB experimental site in 2012. As a result, four promising cultivars were selected in terms of height (short stature), yield (comparable to typical Saba), and days to maturity (earliness). These cultivars together with the typical Saba and Cardaba were planted in multi-location trial sites for further field evaluation and to determine the stability of each character. The sites include different farms in Laguna, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, Oriental Mindoro, Butuan, and Davao City (Philippines). Interestingly, based from the initial result of the experiment, LSG 001 was able to maintain its short-statured characteristic and produces its flower as early as eight months. Moreover, this cultivar was the earliest to be harvested among all the cultivars tested across all locations. Planting this specific cultivar might help banana growers in producing raw materials for banana chips to further strengthen the position of the country as a strong exporter of banana chips.