Characteristics like Total Soluble Content and Vein to Vein Distances in Leaves Help in Screening the Banana Varieties for Making Dinning Plates and Packaging: a Case Study

Knowledge of soluble solids and vein distances are important to understand banana anatomy and physiology and their end use as food plates/food wrapper. However, very few studies are available on the variation of these traits between the varieties and seasons. The aim of the present report is to fill this gap by analyzing seven different varieties in wet and dry seasons. The inter-vein distance of primary and secondary veins and the total soluble solids of leaf sap are higher in summer than in the rainy season. The drought-sensitive banana variety Robusta (AAA) has a slightly shorter vascular distance (0.80 cm) than the drought-tolerant Rupa (BB) (1.30 cm) in the dry season. Diploid M balbisiana Rupa (BB) variety has significantly higher total soluble solids (0.47 degrees brix) of leaves than other species in summer. The results are discussed in relation to the genomic composition, ploidy level of banana varieties, their water stress tolerance and suitability for use as leaf plate/wrappers. This study has a practical impact on assessing banana varietal resistance to drought, the ability to withstand leaves and packaging with two easy-to-measure characteristics of inter-vein distances and leaf soluble solids after further large-scale validation.