Plantain news

Nine African banana and plantain breeding programmes agree to share data and trials

Meeting in Arusha, the IITA-led network trained breeders on shared data tools and plans multi-environment trials, starting in Uganda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to speed up new banana varieties.

CGIAR10 November 20262 min read

Livestock

Sheep trial finds plantain dilutes urine nitrogen by water intake, not by its special compounds

A Canterbury study in the Journal of Animal Science comparing eight plantain-chicory-ryegrass diets in 120 young sheep found no meaningful evidence that plantain's secondary compounds raise urine output; low forage dry matter drove the effect, which DairyNZ accepts while pointing to farmlet trials s

Farmers Weekly NZ20 September 20262 min read