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With only five trees reportedly remaining, a Madagascan banana species has been put on an extinction watchlist — and it could affect your supermarket stash.
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.
The banana we usually see in grocery stores is the Cavendish variety. Cavendish bananas originated from one plant, so they are clones of each other. This means they are genetically the same -- so ...
The average American eats 26.2 pounds (11.9 kg) of the Cavendish banana each year, and the question is being asked as to whether this oft-consumed fruit is on course to extinction. [14] Apart from the export trade, 85% of banana production is for local consumption and many of the cultivars used for this purpose are also susceptible to infection ...
The Madagascar banana is listed as critically endangered because of deforestation and climate change. However, some botanists believe that the Madagascar banana is a potential source of resistance to Panama disease , which wiped out the Gros Michel banana, and threatens the Cavendish banana , which is the main banana of international commerce.
The first dockworkers strike at major East and Gulf coast ports in almost half a century could soon mean shortages of bananas and pricier imported cherries at U.S. grocery stores. That's because ...
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Banana plantations are subject to damage by parasitic nematodes and insect pests, and to fungal and bacterial diseases, one of the most serious being Panama disease which is caused by a Fusarium fungus. This and black sigatoka threaten the production of Cavendish bananas, the main kind eaten in the Western world, which is a triploid Musa ...