Bananas and plantains (Musa spp.) are grown in more than hundred tropical and subtropical countries and provide staple food for hundreds of millions of people. Cultivated bananas are parthenocarpic, seed sterile vegetatively propagated diploid, triploid and tetraploid clones, threatened by many diseases and pests. Breeding of improved cultivars is hampered by seed sterility, lack of knowledge on genetic diversity within Musa, as well as lack of information on genome structure.
