Abstract
Plantain is one of the most important sources of food in the African lowlands stretching from the lowlands of Guinea and Liberia to the central basin of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo). Because plantain cultivars do not produce seeds, plantain cultivation is based on vegetatively transplanted lateral shoots/suckers. The way by which plantain reached the African continent is still under speculation. The aim of this study was to shed light on the history of plantain cultivars through a linguistic/synonymy study in northern Democratic Republic of Congo. We report the diversity of plantains in 18 villages across the Bas-Uele province based on a survey. Three villages in which plantain production systems dominated were selected in each territory, and ten households were consulted in each village. In each selected village, a focus group discussion was conducted with a group of at least 30 men, and with a separate group of 30 women to establish a list of plantain cultivars grown and known. A total of 46 cultivars were identified and 294 synonyms detected. The cultivar names are mostly related to animal features and agronomic traits, although there is a need to revisit the list for more specific traditional names. The local differences in cultivar identity, density and distribution are explained partly due to the influence of humid forest versus savanna landscapes, but the main part seems to be due to previous movements of Benza, Boa, Ngbandi, Rambo and Zande ethnic groups with their own set of cultivars. We demonstrate that the recorded synonymy data are useful for a tentative partial reconstruction of the history of some cultivars. This is useful for the genetic improvement of plantain cultivars, which most probably will have to rely for a great deal on the unraveling and management of epigenetic mechanisms. Key words: Bas-Uele, cultivar, diversity, ethnic group, plantain, synonymy.
Highlights
Plantain (Musa sp., AAB subgroup) is one of the main food crops in the forest regions of central and westernAfrica
Their history has been very difficult to trace in the archaeobotanical record. The development of this exceptional diversity in Africa can only be explained by a century-long accumulation of somatic mutants from presumably a few basic cultivars introduced from Asia (De Langhe et al, 1995; Daniells et al, 2001; Mbida Mindzie et al, 2001)
Already during the short period of exploration, 46 cultivars were recorded (Supplementary file: Table S1), which is about half of the 97 accessions of the University of Kisangani (UNIKIS) collection, which represents roughly the total diversity of plantains in DR Congo (Adheka et al, 2018b)
Summary
Plantain (Musa sp., AAB subgroup) is one of the main food crops in the forest regions of central and westernAfrica. Plantain is the second most important staple food crop after cassava in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Pemsl and Staver, 2014). Because these cultivars do not produce seeds, plantain cultivation is maintained vegetatively by transplanting suckers (that is, lateral shoots) (De Langhe et al, 1995). Their history has been very difficult to trace in the archaeobotanical record The development of this exceptional diversity in Africa can only be explained by a century-long accumulation of somatic mutants from presumably a few basic cultivars introduced from Asia (De Langhe et al, 1995; Daniells et al, 2001; Mbida Mindzie et al, 2001). The base of current rainforest agriculture is formed by Musa species of the AAB group (plantain) (Neumann et al, 2012)
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