{"id":15778,"date":"2026-06-20T12:46:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T12:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.iita.org\/news-item\/iita-scientists-and-partners-screen-up-to-189-types-of-banana-for-provitamin-a\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T20:29:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:29:51","slug":"iita-scientists-and-partners-screen-up-to-189-types-of-banana-for-provitamin-a","status":"publish","type":"news-item","link":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/news-item\/iita-scientists-and-partners-screen-up-to-189-types-of-banana-for-provitamin-a\/","title":{"rendered":"IITA scientists and partners screen up to 189 types of banana for provitamin A"},"content":{"rendered":"<strong>R4D Special<\/strong>\n\nScientists have finalized the mammoth task of screening up to 189 banana genotypes to identify those with high levels of provitamin A for integration into\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/\">IITA\u2019s<\/a><\/u>\u00a0banana improvement program as part of ongoing efforts to develop banana hybrids with enhanced vitamin A.\n<div id=\"attachment_4846\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 884px\">\n\n<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-28598\" src=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/provitamin-A-bananas-p01-300x150-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"884\" height=\"442\" \/>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-4846\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Provitamin A bananas.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\nThe fat-soluble vitamin A is essential for vision, reproduction, growth, and the body\u2019s immunity. Its deficiency leads to health conditions such as xerophthalmia (abnormal dryness of the eyeball characterized by conjunctivitis), anemia, and increased susceptibility to and severity of infections.\n\nOne of the effective ways to combat vitamin A deficiency in populations in developing countries with limited options for diverse diets is through biofortification of major staples. Scientists have successfully biofortified maize, cassava, and sweet potato with vitamin A through conventional breeding.\u00a0 A lot of attention is now on biofortifying banana.\n\nScientists from IITA and the\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ufs.ac.za\/\">University of the Free State<\/a><\/u>, South Africa, successfully screened banana genotypes at the IITA banana breeding program in Nigeria comprising plantain,\u00a0<em>M. acuminata<\/em>\u00a0cultivars, and bred hybrids to determine levels of naturally occurring provitamin A carotenoid (pVAC) in fruit pulp using high performance liquid chromatography.\n\nThe findings were published in a paper<u>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S2590157519300264\">Variability of carotenoids in a\u00a0<em>Musa<\/em>\u00a0germplasm collection and implications for provitamin A biofortification<\/a><\/u>\u00a0the Food Chemistry: X journal last month.\n\nCarotenoids are a diverse group of multifunctional plant pigments responsible for the yellow, orange, and red color seen in many fruits and vegetables including carrots. They are important in plants for photosynthesis, but in humans they are important as biological antioxidants, and provitamin A carotenoids, in particular, are an important source of vitamin A.\n\nThe total carotenoid content in tested genotypes varied from 1.45 \u00b5g\/g for one of the hybrids to 36.21 \u00b5g\/g for the\u00a0<em>M. acuminata<\/em>\u00a0cultivar with a mean of 8.00 \u00b5g\/g fresh weight. Of the predominant carotenoids identified, about 78% are pro-vitamin A.\n\n\u201cThis study demonstrates that crossbreeding in banana and plantain is feasible to obtain hybrids combining high yield and resistance with a high provitamin A content,\u201d said\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/iita-staff\/swennen-rony\/\">Prof Rony Swennen<\/a><\/u>, Head of banana breeding at IITA and one of the researchers involved in this study.\n\nSelected plantain,\u00a0<em>M. acuminata\u00a0<\/em>ssp.\u00a0<em>banksii<\/em>, and hybrids with high provitamin A carotenoid content will be useful in initiatives seeking to promote banana as a dietary source of vitamin A.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists have finalized the mammoth task of screening up to 189 banana genotypes to identify those with high levels of provitamin A for integration into IITA\u2019s banana improvement program as part of ongoing efforts to develop banana hybrids with enhanced vitamin A.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":15779,"template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"tags":[],"science-area":[],"program":[],"location":[32],"news-type":[],"hub":[61],"crop":[65],"impact-areas":[],"item-year":[197],"class_list":["post-15778","news-item","type-news-item","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","location-nigeria","hub-western-africa","crop-banana","item-year-197"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/15778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/15778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26624,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/15778\/revisions\/26624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15778"},{"taxonomy":"science-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/science-area?post=15778"},{"taxonomy":"program","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program?post=15778"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=15778"},{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=15778"},{"taxonomy":"hub","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hub?post=15778"},{"taxonomy":"crop","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/crop?post=15778"},{"taxonomy":"impact-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/impact-areas?post=15778"},{"taxonomy":"item-year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/item-year?post=15778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}