Session VI(Special Session): Frontiers in Banana Research — From Genetic Resources to Sustainable Production
Date: 21st November 2025
Co-Chairs: Dr. R. Selvarajan (ICAR-National Research Centre for Banana, India) and Dr. Amah Delphine (International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Nigeria)
Bananas (including plantains) play a vital role in food security, livelihoods, and climate resilience across tropical and subtropical regions. The growing demand for sustainable, climate-resilient agri-food systems provides a timely opportunity to broaden the focus of the International Symposium on Tropical Root & Tuber Crops. This special session marks a strategic step towards integrating banana into the Society’s collective agenda, unlocking new opportunities for cross-crop innovations and sustainable impact. The session will discuss groundbreaking banana research prospects and progress in unravelling its untapped potential from complex genetic diversity to sustainable production as part of the broader ISTRC 4 NARES agenda.
Scientific experts working on bananas and other tropical crops are invited to benefit from multidisciplinary
dialogues and collaborative platforms and offer presentations on following topics.
A. Banana Biodiversity, Genetic Resources, and Breeding Innovations
- Conservation of banana genetic diversity for climate resilience
- Use of landraces, wild relatives, and pre-breeding for trait introgression and food
security
- Application of genomics, phenomics, gene editing, and AI-tools for trait discovery and
breeding better bananas
B. Stress Management and Resilience in Banana
- Management of emerging pests, diseases, with a special focus on integrated management
of FoC-TR4 and BBTV
- Understanding and better preparedness to climate change impact
- Recent advances in eco-friendly stress mitigation solutions
- Scope of AI, remote sensing and forecasting tools for climate-smart banana farming
C. Sustainable Production Systems
- Next generation multiplication techniques for quality planting materials
- Smart farming with fertigation, AI, and microbial consortia
- Intercropping and regenerative models for resilient banana-based systems
D. Post-Harvest, Value Addition, and Mechanization in Banana
- Innovative post-harvest handling and nutritive banana-based products development
- Utilization of banana waste into wealth (Circular Economy)
