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Disease Threatens 99% of the Banana Market (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In the 1950s, Panama Disease wiped out the dominant type of banana that was imported worldwide. Banana-growers had to switch to a different strain, the Cavendish banana, at great expense. Now, a new study finds that a more virulent strain of the disease is directly threatening the Cavendish banana. Banana plants are dying from it throughout Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Australia. It hasn't reached Latin America yet, which is good — that's where the vast majority of the world's bananas are produced. But the researchers say it's just a matter of time. "The latest strain is likely to put the risks of monoculture on display once more. And while scientists might find or breed a better one in the mean time, the reality is that this time around we don't have a formidable replacement that's resistant to the new strain of Panama Disease. Once it reaches Latin America, as it is expected to, it could be only a matter of decades before the most popular banana on the planet once again disappears."
I'm in Asia and the bananas look fine to me.
History has so many lessons to teach. We have common phrases about in our language. Yet, still, we fail to learn.
Reliance on one type of a crop led to the Great Irish Famine, killing millions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
As already mentioned in the article, in the 1950s this happened already with bananas.
A quick Google search will yield many more examples.
And when will they do to resolve this? Odd-on they'll just find another single type of banana to grow everywhere...
*sigh*
Seems like a overblown crisis. If it will take decades to be an issue, I am sure someone will work out a gene therapy or countermeasure to the disease by then.
This is not the 1950s. The current state of bioengineering is far more advanced than the 1950s.
The Cavendish banana is a tasteless, waxy disaster of a fruit.
It is the banana equivalent of the cardboard-flavored Red Delicious apple which has been so over-engineered for shelf-life and shiny skin that all traces of flavor vanished long ago. The fact that people still eat Cavendish bananas, Red Delicious apples and various varieties of ludicrously orange oranges with skins like pachyderms. is testament to the fact that American consumers really don't want fruit that tastes good as much as they want fruit that looks like it was rendered in a 3D program.
Here in Asia, other less "industrial-grade" bananas still exist. They are sweeter, more flavorful and won't survive a plane crash like your laboratory-born neo-fruit.
The death of the Cavendish could be a wonderful thing.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Having tried a fair bit more bananas that most people, I disagree. I would say Cavendish is just fine. Sure, there is diversity in banana fruit tastes, and IMO Cavendish is not as good as, say, a Pisang Awak, but I don't get where people call it bad. I've had worse varieties.
and won't survive a plane crash like your laboratory-born neo-fruit.
Cavendish has been cultivated for well over a century. Not exactly what you'd call a 'neo-fruit,' as if that would be a bad thing anyway.
Apparently the artificial banana flavouring found in candies is much closer to the Gros Michel. I've only ever had the Cavendish. I wonder if any banana connoisseurs here would agree?
a taste test has shown that the Gros Michel does closely resemble the artificial banana flavor: "It's almost like what a Cavendish would taste like but sort of amplified, sweeter and, yeah, somehow artificial. Like how grape flavoured bubble-gum differs from an actual grape," he explains. "When I first tasted it, it made me think of banana flavourings." - http://io9.com/debunking-the-m...
The fact that people still eat Cavendish bananas, Red Delicious apples and various varieties of ludicrously orange oranges with skins like pachyderms.
How do you shop? by smell or by the look for the fruit? I generally shop by smell however I do notice what you say about some of the American fruit - it looks great but tastes pretty ordinary. As the taste usually tells you about the nutrient content, you are right to pursue a natural taste, not just for taste.
I general let bananas ripen and other fruits for a day or more in the open air because of the amount of refrigeration and packing in sulphur dioxide gas to keep them in 'suspended animation' before shelving. It gives the fruit a chance to be a fruit again, instead of a consumer item.
Here in Asia, other less "industrial-grade" bananas still exist. They are sweeter, more flavorful and won't survive a plane crash like your laboratory-born neo-fruit.
The death of the Cavendish could be a wonderful thing.
Australian produce is fantastic. Oranges are so sweet that you can devour 5 of them before realising it. Mangos, cantelope (rockmelon). We have red delicious, but you have to get them at the right time for them to be juicy and sweet, at other times they are exactly as you say, however there are about 5 other types of apples to choose from, about 3 varieties of pears, excluding nashi. I would imagine that Asia as an amazing variety of things available from the few things I see brought over.
I checked and our local bananas are cavendish however there are another two varieties I generally see. I've found they are pretty good if you leave them ripen in the air.
I hope they sort it out, I eat lots of them.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
One of my co-worker in Singapore has a banana plantation in Indonesia, and because of the disease he almost lost everything
Once the disease arrive, all the banana trees died, within weeks
Banana tree truck is unlike the solid wood tree truck - the core of the tree trunk is layered, much like onion, and the layers are tender - the disease, a type of fungi, attacked the gaps between the layers inside the core, and the rot came from within
There is no cure, absolutely no cure
Once the plantation is infected they have to chop down all the trees and ***BURN EVERYTHING***, , else the fungi may spread to nearby banana trees
Bonus trivia ...
Do you know how the disease spread to Africa?
The disease hitched a ride on the bottom of a pair of boots
Yes, *BOOTS*
Some 'banana expert' went to Asia to check the banana disease, he wore a pair of boots into the plantation which was affected
Some months later, that same 'expert' went to Africa - and he wore the *SAME* pair of boots and walked into a pristine banana plantation (absolutely no disease) and the fungi which hitched a ride on his boot was transferred into the soil, and from there onwards Africa's banana are no longer disease free
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The main reason the bananas are vulnerable to this is that all commercially grown bananas are sterile clones, reproducing asexually: http://www.damninteresting.com...
Wild non-cultivated bananas are pretty much all seed and wouldn't make a very desirable alternative: https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...
Since the commercial bananas are all identical, they are all equally susceptible to the same disease, which leaves three options:
1) Identify and switch to a different strain of banana that's not susceptible, which takes a lot of time, money, and likely has other drawbacks
2) Forget about bananas -- hard to do in parts of the world where they are a staple food
3) Use genetic engineering to try to create a disease resistant version before it's too late
Fact is that Cavendish becomes the main variety because the 'Panama Disease'. as mentioned in TFA, wiped out the previous, much more tasty variety
In Asia you get to enjoy more varieties because banana originally came from the South East Asian region (mainly Indonesia and Malaysia, with some in Southern Thailand and on some island in the Philippines)
There was no banana in Africa nor in America - all the bananas in Africa was brought there some 2 thousand years ago, most probably by sea-faring tribes originated from Southern China / Vietnam which plied both the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean
In places like Indonesia and Malaysia there are other varieties of bananas, unfortunately many varieties had gone extinct due to habitat destruction
I have tried 'red banana' before, yes, blood red in color, very tasty and smell really nice too - if you happen to be near Singapore, Indonesia or Malaqysia do not forget to taste all the different varieties of banana that you would never get to taste elsewhere
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Banana (plants) can, and do, sexually reproduce. They're just full of seeds and not particularly nice to eat.
Except it all tries to kill you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Well, considering it has been almost a decade since this story last appeared here
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
I would imagine they have this nearly sorted out by now, no?
Or is this like fusion power and personal jet packs, always a decade away (it doesn't matter which decade. Pick one. I liked the 1980s).
Since then, I've tried to find if different bananas were available to North America. Not really, so obviously bananas aren't important enough to save (you know there would be a national outrage if BSE were ready to wipe out beef production).
It's not like many Americans actually eat fruit anyway.
He is likely comparing the taste of supermarket bananas to ones ripened on the tree. A lot , if not all north American supermarket bananas are picked green and shipped to ripen either in transit or in a controlled environment before being put out to sell. Apple's are somewhat treated the same where they are doused with gasses and refrigerated to last almost a year out of season.
With both fruits, there is a big noticable difference in tastes between ones ripened on the plant verses ripening in storage. We have a large orchard near here and they allow the apples to ripen on the tree for the product they sell to the public and make cider. I'm not sure if they even store apples for outside the season. Compared to the same apple from a supermarket that may have traveled 1000 or more miles and sat in storage, it is like two different varieties and you end up looking to see if the name is spelled different or something. Likewise, i had fresh bananas when i was at a plantation in south America and couldn't believe how much sweeter and banana tasting they where. It makes the stuff I can get at home seem more like a plantain than a banana. I made a comment about how they should ship those instead of the ones we get and the response was they are the same, its a matter of shipping, storage and so on.
I bet what he is experiencing is the difference between fresh verses handled for three months or whatever. To this day, i find apples from the supermarket to be deficient in flavor.
That means that they're being picked too immature. Tomatoes maximize flavour when allowed to ripen on the plant as long as possible. But producers prefer to pick them as close to the "hard green" stage as possible to minimize damage in transit/processing and maximize shelf life (they can make them red and soft with ethylene gas right before delivery to stores but they can't give them flavour). So there's a conflict between these two competing interests.
There's really an amazing difference between a vine-ripened tomato like you might grow in your garden and a green-picked/artificially ripened store tomato. I dare say there's not another common crop around that has such a dramatic difference. Even the texture is different - the thickness of the skin, how they "squish" under pressure, etc.
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.
"Having tried a fair bit more bananas that most people, I disagree. I would say Cavendish is just fine. Sure, there is diversity in banana fruit tastes, and IMO Cavendish is not as good as, say, a Pisang Awak, but I don't get where people call it bad. I've had worse varieties."
We're dealing with foodie hipster one-upmanship here. One of the rules is that a fruit only tastes good if you pay a fortune for it at Whole Paycheck.
They are infected with Republican Base disease.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Found one:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foo...
Better than the "Republicans want everyone dead" meme, and way better than the loser who feels the need to sockpuppet-spam attacks on someone about some old argument over (antivirus software?)
There have always been dumb memes on Slashdot... we still sometimes see the ancient "First Post" meme (probably one of the first forum memes around). Others, like "Natalie Portman naked/petrified/with grits" have thankfully died out. Goatse attempts have significantly died down as well.
Some weren't so bad. I never felt angry after getting Rickrolled, for example - more like "Oh, okay, I'm an idiot" ;) And does anyone else remember the old "Martian Council" posts that someone used to make every time a space story got posted, where some leader of the Martians would announce their objection to NASA's plans and their strategy to thwart them? They practically created an alternate universe in those posts :) Seriously, why don't we get more "story-meme" spam wherein the spam evolves, introduces new characters, new plot developments, etc? Much more entertaining!
Exactly.
A friend of mine did a few months of work and travel in Australia.
One of her jobs was to dump perfectly ripe red tomatoes, and pick the green ones and send them to Europe.
That's always the case, though. I'd guess that most Americans have never actually had a fruit ripened on a tree. I grew up in Hawaii and used to get mangoes straight from the tree. The ones at the grocery store are not even close. The same thing goes for oranges and tomatoes. If you're lucky enough to live in a place where you can grow your own fruit, it really is worth doing so.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
At least there are some varieties of banana that are resistant to this strain of Panama disease.
Citrus greening:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It is a bacterial disease that is wiping out citrus in many places worldwide. It's spread by a sap sucking insect.
There is NO non GMO citrus plant that is resistant. Lemons, limes, oranges, tangerines, kumquats, pommelos, buddha's hands, every single citrus is in the process of being wiped out.
So far, the only resistant citrus plants are ones that have had spinach genes grafted in.
Citrus greening is rampant in Florida, and many areas worldwide, but is spreading somewhat slower in California because citrus areas tend to be separated by ridges of hills.
Infected plants only survive, for a while, if they're given antibiotics.
It's looking awfully like it's soon going to be a choice of GMO citrus or NO citrus.
And while you're GMO-ing citrus, how about removing or reducing the fumarins which cause skin cancer?
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/...
(A swipe at nature nutjobs, "natural" doesn't mean "good" every time--citrus might be better if it didn't cause cancer, right?)
--PeterM
The Economist sounded this exact alarm more than 10 years ago: http://www.economist.com/node/...
It will become scarce, it will live on in the wild, and it will mutate to become resistant.
The Cavendish banana is sterile.
Here in Asia, other less "industrial-grade" bananas still exist. They are sweeter, more flavorful and won't survive a plane crash like your laboratory-born neo-fruit.
The death of the Cavendish could be a wonderful thing.
The Cavendish banana has been cultivated for something like a century, it wasn't "laboratory-born". It's commercially successful because it can withstand the rigors of shipping, unlike about every other banana strain currently around.
As for the destruction of the Cavendish being a wonderful thing.. sure, if you're the kind of monster that doesn't give a damn about the people who depend on harvesting them for their livelihood. There's an entire global industry around the Cavendish that will collapse and wipe out jobs around the planet. But hey, as long as you can get something subjectively better, screw everyone else eh?
If 'tree ripened" isn't a hipster fad already, I suspect it soon will be.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Even the Gros Michel banana that the Panama disease attacked is still around, not "extinct" and not "wiped out" though large commercial plantations can't exist without the disease coming. There are many, many kinds of bananas, check out a large well stocked asian grocery store. Some kinds have to be cooked but there are plenty of types that can be eaten "raw" and have no seeds.
So we'll have bananas to develop the next disease resistant type, the fruit will not disappear from earth.
Unfortunately, several varieties of something isn't always a protection. Citrus greening is wiping out all citrus, not just a single variety.
--PM
You don't understand the problem. All strains of banana are monocultures, because their seeds never ripen. This means that you can only reproduce them by cloning (an easy process for bananas and I think dating back to per-columbian times.).
Now even clones accumulate mutations, and that's why there are several different strains of banana, but there's no sexual recombination of genes. So you end up with a monoculture in each area, with each area having a slightly different accumulation of mutations. But they are quite similar. Similar enough that a fungus can wipe out an entire crop leaving no survivors (because there's no useful amount of genetic variation). And because the fungus is not a monoculture, it can more readily adapt to various different strains. Thus bananas varieties are inherently subject to being wiped out by a fungus, and there's a fungus that's been doing this since the 1930's (at least). Rapid long distance transportation makes things worse, as it allows the fungus to spread more rapidly and widely.
And this problem exists for ALL strains of banana. There are some for which the fungus has not yet adapted, but their time will come.
Bananas are one crop for with GMO techniques are necessary. Naval Oranges will be another. (IIUC, seedless watermelons are produced by chemically treating the seeds that will grow into the watermelon plant, so this is a different matter.)
Do note, however, that while bananas and naval oranges are extreme cases, the problem exists to a lesser extent in all monoculture crops.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
"Bananas were discovered by the Portuguese on the Atlantic coast of Africa. They cultivated the fruit on the Canary Islands. From there it was introduced to the Americas by Spanish missionaries. ...."
That is the recent, European and American history of the fruit, and what they 'discovered' in west Africa was that Africans were already cultivating it. Bananas had been discovered and used by others a whole long time before that. As can be seen in any wider treatment of the subject.
Yes I am well aware that the great Khan loved bananas and was also bananas from drinking too much of the products of fermentation using both them and rice! Same as Alexander the Great when he conquered Persia and discovered the delights of the east. In Persia there were laws where the production of sweet Musa products was only permitted for nobility for the purpose of the creation of alcohol. And the peasants were permitted only to use unripe fruits.
The Romans were more sensible about the use of Musa and saw it as an exotic staple from largely unknown places in Africa and the Middle east down to Mesopotamia, they were not aware of far eastern species of the plant. So for the Romans, plantain products were mostly in the form of a salt cured potato chip like products that were traded for throughout the Roman empire after the defeat of Hannibal.
The history of food usage and cultivation is a fascinating subject and is a key in itself to our understanding of agriculture and how we as a species have managed to fuck things up over the centuries. The historical use of Musa in China is even older and like much of ancient Chinese history is not well understood in the West, or in China for that matter but you can bet that they brewed beer from it as well as used the plant to the full extent possible given the size and age of their Empire.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
One thing I miss in America is the stem of the banana "tree". Banana tree has layers and layers of greenish "bark". As you strip them, it turns white and right in the center, about 2 inches in diameter the "stem". Harvested and sold in all vegetable shops in South India. It is not sweet. It is more like white radish in consistency. Chop it into disks, saute it with musturd seeds, some lentils, asafoetida and salt. Sprinkle grated fresh coconut. Wow! Tastes. absolutely. fantastic. It is also gets used in a tamarind based sauce called sambar. Out of this world. Now a days they are slowly making an appearance in Indian grocery stores. Before it gets totally wiped off, may be it will be available in USA.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Is it possible for some samples to be stored safely in vaults, wait for the disease to sweep through the land and bring it back? Or the fungus has other hosts and lives forever in the soil?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
. . . appear to believe in "drop bears."
It's called humor friend.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.