Bananas in the news again ...

[Wyatt earp]

I don't know why this bothers me but I remember a few years ago reading we never got to eat our great / grand / parents type of bananas because that strand is extinct ...

Disease Threatens Bananas: Will The New Panama Disease Lead To Extinction?


The disease now threatens bananas for the second time in the last 50 years. This means that people who love bananas might find less on store shelves as the disease spreads from Asia to other locations around the world. Tech Times reported that scientists are now warning growers about the possible extinction of the banana


The fruit has faced this threat before. Fifty years ago, the Panama disease, also known as Fusarium fungus, threatened bananas. After it spread through Central America, growers were forced to burn their banana crops. At that time, growers had to find a new type of banana to grow around the world. In 1965, it was the Gros Michel banana variety that lined store shelves. Today, it is the inferior Cavendish cultivar that growers have cultivated and grown since the Gros Michel banana went “extinct"

 

[Muhammed]

Inferior in what particular way?

 

[Wyatt earp]

Inferior in what particular way?

I think in the past, I read the older/popular/extinct banana was bigger and better tasting if I remember correctly.

 

[Old Rocks]

You would think that we would learn from the potato famine in Ireland and Scotland. You have to keep a variety of genetic types of agricultural crops for safety. Growing all the same genetic type insures that at some point a disease will come along that will wipe out, or nearly wipe out, that variety.

 

[Wyatt earp]

You would think that we would learn from the potato famine in Ireland and Scotland. You have to keep a variety of genetic types of agricultural crops for safety. Growing all the same genetic type insures that at some point a disease will come along that will wipe out, or nearly wipe out, that variety.

I read my link all the way through, those bananas still exists but rare...

Ya know speaking of your post I thought Norway or some country had a huge underground Noahs ark so to speak of every plant seed on the planet?

 

[Old Rocks]

Svalbard Global Seed Vault - Crop Trust

This one I know of, I really think that there should be others. We have a tendency to concentrate on the most profitable crops and ignore the many genetic varieties that are important if that particular crop runs into a disease that wipes most of it out. With over seven billion people in the world, failure to take insurance measures like this can be a very costly mistake.

 

[Syriusly]

You would think that we would learn from the potato famine in Ireland and Scotland. You have to keep a variety of genetic types of agricultural crops for safety. Growing all the same genetic type insures that at some point a disease will come along that will wipe out, or nearly wipe out, that variety.

Read the articles- some of what you speak is true- but also there are other challenges- banana's are all cloned- so developing new varieties is complicated- and not all existing species have the benefits of the Cavendish.

I just recently heard about this issue- this could be devastating to places that rely upon bananas as a staple. Luckily so far it has not reached Central America but apparently they expect it will be just a matter of time- hell how did it get to Australia?

 

[Old Rocks]

There really isn't any isolated places on Earth anymore. Air travel has seen to that. So, what is happening on one continent will eventually reach the rest. Eventually, as in months.