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Panama disease (or Fusarium wilt) is a plant disease that infects banana plants (Musa spp.). It is a wilting disease caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc). The pathogen is resistant to fungicides and its control is limited to phytosanitary measures .
Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Pronunciation ⓘ) is a fungal plant pathogen that causes Panama disease of banana (Musa spp.), also known as Fusarium wilt.The fungi and the related disease are responsible for widespread pressure on banana growing regions, destroying the economic viability of several commercially important banana varieties.
Fusarium wilt (Panama disease) is the most serious disease of banana, threatening 80% of the world's banana production, most of which is planted with the susceptible Cavendish varieties. Bananas are a staple food in the diet of millions throughout the subtropics and tropics, and the spread of Panama disease could have devastating effects on ...
They are pervasive plant endophytes that can colonize plant roots [15] [16] and may even protect plants or form the basis of disease suppression. [17] [18] Because the hosts of a given forma specialis usually are closely related, many have assumed that members of a forma specialis are also closely related and descended from a common ancestor. [19]
The variety was once the dominant export banana to Europe and North America, grown in Central America but, in the 1950s, Panama disease, a wilt caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense, wiped out vast tracts of Gros Michel plantations in Central America, though it is still grown on non-infected land throughout the region. [9]
Cavendish bananas, accounting for around 99% of banana exports to developed countries, are vulnerable to the fungal disease known as Panama disease. There is a risk of extinction of the variety. Because Cavendish bananas are parthenocarpic (they don't have seeds and reproduce only through cloning), their
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While the Panama disease was the first major challenging and aggressive epidemic, again United Fruit would be faced with an even more combative fungal disease, Black sigatoka, in 1935. Within a year, sigatoka plagued 80% of their Honduran crop and once again scientists would begin a search for a solution to this new epidemic. [54]