WP: Bye, bye, bananas

[No Excuses]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/04/the-worlds-most-popular-banana-could-go-extinct/

 

 

In the mid 1900s, the most popular banana in the world—a sweet, creamy variety called Gros Michel grown in Latin America—all but disappeared from the planet. At the time, it was the only banana in the world that could be exported. But a fungus, known as Panama Disease, which first appeared in Australia in the late 1800s, changed that after jumping continents. The disease debilitated the plants that bore the fruit. The damage was so great and swift that in a matter of only a few decades the Gros Michel nearly went extinct.

 

Now, half a century later, a new strain of the disease is threatening the existence of the Cavendish, the banana that replaced the Gros Michel as the world's top banana export, representing 99 percent of the market, along with a number of banana varieties produced and eaten locally around the world.

And there is no known way to stop it—or even contain it.

 

That's the troubling conclusion of a new study published in PLOS Pathogens, which confirmed something many agricultural scientists have feared to be true: that dying banana plants in various parts of the world are suffering from the same exact thing: Tropical Race 4, a more potent mutation of the much feared Panama Disease.

 

 

[PokerPacker]

This isn't new. Cavendish's days have been numbered for awhile.

[TradeTheBeal!]

There's a lot of money in bananas. Something will get figured out.

[Momma There Goes That Man]

[PokerPacker]

There's a lot of money in bananas. Something will get figured out.

They'll move on to a new type of banana just like they did when the moved on to the Cavendish. This is an inevitability when you work with a monoculture. You take away the plant's ability to evolve resistance to diseases that are perfectly capable of evolving to attack the plant.

[No Excuses]

This isn't new. Cavendish's days have been numbered for awhile.

 

There are some new findings in the PLOS study. Primarily that the current pathogen (TR4) is a single clone of the pathogen that caused the Panama Disease and it alone is carrying out the current pathogenic event across Asia.

 

Significance can be tied to:

 

There's a lot of money in bananas. Something will get figured out.

 

Something may be figured out but it will be a lot tougher when you are trying to save a monoclonal crop with basically no genetic diversity against a single pathogenic strain that is showing highl degree of sequence conservation across multiple global regions.

 

From the published paper:

 

http://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1005197

 

Foc is a haploid asexual pathogen [8] and is therefore expected to have a predominantly clonal population structure [13,14,19–22]. Comparison of re-sequencing data of TR4 isolates from Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, and the Philippines—with the publicly available reference genome sequence of Foc TR4 strain II-5 (http://www.broadinstitute.org/)—indeed shows a very low level of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (about 0.01%). This, together with a highly similar set of DArTseq markers, suggests that the temporal and spatial dispersal of TR4 is due to a single clone (Fig 2). This finding underscores the need for global awareness and quarantine campaigns in order to protect banana production from another pandemic that particularly affects vulnerable, small-holder farmers.

 

 

 

They'll move on to a new type of banana just like they did when the moved on to the Cavendish. This is an inevitability when you work with a monoculture. You take away the plant's ability to evolve resistance to diseases that are perfectly capable of evolving to attack the plant.

 

It won't be as easy because the Cavendish was there and available the last time this pathogen spread and it was considered resistant. The variants available now don't satisfy requirements for meeting demands (which wasn't really a problem back in history). It means we need breeding strategies that are much more challenging and costly. The conclusion from the study probably explains it better than I can:

 

“Cavendish”-based somaclones [31] do not satisfy local or international industry demands (apart from the epidemiological risks), as this germplasm is, at most, only partially resistant to TR4 [32]. Instead, the substantial genetic diversity for TR4 resistance in (wild) banana germplasm, such as accessions of Musa acuminata ssp. malaccensis [4], can be exploited in breeding programs and/or along with various transformation techniques [33–35] to develop a new generation of banana cultivars in conformity with consumer preferences. Developing new banana cultivars, however, requires major investments in research and development and the recognition of the banana as a global staple and cash crop (rather than an orphan crop) that supports the livelihoods of millions of small-holder farmers.

 

[Mr. Sinister]

This is terrible...

[Springfield]

So what will those dirty hippies do when they have to eat GMO bananas?

[TradeTheBeal!]

So what will those dirty hippies do when they have to eat GMO bananas?

Plantains with a little honey?

[No Excuses]

So what will those dirty hippies do when they have to eat GMO bananas?

 

The irony that bananas were already genetically modified through artificial selection through the course of human history will be lost upon them.

[Springfield]

The irony that bananas were already genetically modified through artificial selection through the course of human history will be lost upon them.

But... Monsanto...

[Koolblue13]

Bananas in the states absolutely suck.

 

There is about a dozen varietals on this island that blow them away.

 

Dole does disgusting things to their food and treats employees like slaves.

 

They're just figuring out the reason the caribbean islands that have pineapple and banana farms, have the highest prostate cancer rates and it's poisoning their islands.

[China]

There's a global banana crisis

 

The humble banana is under attack by a disease that is spreading around the globe, and threatening Latin America's all-important export industry.

The industry is so worried about it, that it moved this week's International Banana Congress from Costa Rica to Miami at the last minute so that attendees wouldn't transport the disease to the region with the contaminated dirt on their shoes. Latin America is the primary source of bananas for North America and Europe.

 

The disease -- known as "Panama disease" or "Fusarium wilt" -- has already spread from Asia to parts of Australia, Africa and the Middle East. It specifically affects the Cavendish banana, which is the fruit that consumers in the West are accustomed to eating.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned this month that the $36 billion banana industry must act "to tackle one of the world's most destructive banana diseases."

 

An earlier strain of the Panama disease wiped out what had been the most popular banana variety in the 1960s, the Gros Michel. Producers subsequently adopted the Cavendish banana, which was deemed an inferior product but was resistant to the disease.

 

Now, banana scientists and growers are considering which new banana might replace the current Cavendish variety, as a new strain of the disease has caused production to collapse in parts of Asia.

 

Taiwan has created a number of "mutant" Cavendish bananas that are being tested in the Philippines and China, according to Inge Van den Bergh, a senior banana scientist at Bioversity International in Belgium.

 

"They're quite promising," but they're not necessarily as tasty or suitable for long-distance transport, she told CNNMoney. There's no "silver bullet solution," she said.

 

For now, banana prices in Western grocery stores aren't rising since Latin America has been spared.

 

But consumers in North America and Europe could start seeing changes to their banana varieties and prices over the next decade if the Panama disease spreads to Latin America, Van den Bergh said.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Elessar78]

Grew up in a tropical country. Many people don't realize there are many different types of bananas. Some probably better than cavendish. 

[Bang]

Well, thanks Obama.

 

~Banganga

[Forehead]

As someone who hates bananas, I welcome this genetic mutant strain and all its wiping out capability.  If it starts attacking blueberries, then I'll have an issue with it.

[The 12th Commandment]

Bananas in the states absolutely suck.

 

There is about a dozen varietals on this island that blow them away.

 

This.  Those cavendish are some nasty, worthless excuses for a banana.  I'd rather have better bananas that are frozen.  

[Zguy28]

I like the little bananas. But Cavendish are one of the only foods that is actually cheap and healthy.

[Kilmer17]

We have lots of local choices for bananas.  Not cheap.  But so much better.

[PF Chang]

But Cavendish are one of the only foods that is actually cheap and healthy.

 

Hmm, I think you discovered a hole in the food triangle:

 

[mcsluggo]

it is ridiculous to say that bananas <standard Safeway version> are awful, or crap or whatever other snobbish bs... because there is something better that you can buy in a small market in Marrakesh 3 weeks in April.

 

 

don;t compare bananas to whatever "super-elite-banana" that most of us aren;t cool enough to know... compare bananas to the other options that a person in suburban Indiana has to choose from.    Bananas are awesome.

 

 

they ARE affordable healthy and delicious    (even if indie-cool-invite-banana tastes better in your beret while you are sneering at the noobs)

[Kilmer17]

I like all bananas.  Wasn't trying to sound snobbish.

[Koolblue13]

I'm a snob because the local varieties of bananas are better than the starchy dry Dole crap you get state side? Okay.

I go without a lot to live here. If having fresh bananas makes me a snob, so be it.

My mango tree is full. Want to talk about those?

"Leave my bananas alone" ols

[DM72]

I actually heard about this story a while back. When your parents and grandparents say that bananas tasted better back in their day, they're not lying.

[The 12th Commandment]

Typical of certain subset of society to feel threatened by the more educated.  You must be Trumpettes.  I'm happy and proud to be a banana elitist.