Vitamin A rich bananas

With funding from the Harvestplus Challenge program, Bioversity International carried out germplasm screening for over 400 accessions from different regions. The objective was to identify proteins and enzymes responsible for the accumulation of pVACs in the fruit and establish the vitamin A levels in these varieties. The germplasm screening led to a selection of 12 promising varieties of different subgroups (plantain, East African Highland bananas, ABB cooking bananas, AA and AAA dessert bananas, Pacific plantains, and AA cooking bananas), for trial within East and Central Africa.