The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America • Hacker News Board

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#41

Post by diego_moita » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 3:54 AM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #19

> Desperate, the predecessors of Chiquita and Dole switched production [from the Gros Michel] to a banana they knew to be resistant to Panama disease, despite its relatively bland flavor: the now-ubiquitous Cavendish. I want to try the Gros Michel. What I'm eating is relatively bland?

> What I'm eating is relatively bland?

If you don't live in a tropical country, yes. Bananas in temperate countries taste like Styrofoam.

I don't know if this is a problem specific with the Cavendish or because the bananas aren't ripened in the plant, but in Africa and South America (and probably Southern Asia) bananas have a far more intense flavor. Same happens to guavas. Mangoes and passion fruit, however, keep the same strong flavor.

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#42

Post by jedberg » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 3:56 AM UTC

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #40

jedberg wrote: post #28

> Other scientists—most notably, James Dale of the Queensland University of Technology in Australia—are testing genetically modified disease-resistant Cavendish bananas, but public acceptance of GMOs could prove a significant obstacle to their widespread adoption. This is the problem right here. The lack of science education. A banana modified in a lab and one that is bred through selective breeding are both "GMO", i…

I understand the idea of selective breeding but GMO is more than that. It's very possible to move genes from very different organisms that would never be possible via selective breeding. The ones that come to mind are the glow in the dark organisms that used genes from 2 different types of animals that could never breed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCPtDVnaQ1w So no GMO does not equal selective breeding.

They're not exactly the same, no, but there is nothing that says that eventually those organisms would have a mutation that gave them the ability to glow in the dark. We just make it happen quicker with science. If they can survive with those genes from other species, than they could in theory mutate them too.

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#43

Post by spraak » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 3:56 AM UTC

caymanjim wrote: post #10

Since it's inevitable that the current bananas will collapse from this, maybe it'll speed acceptance of GMO products. People will ignore their unfounded fears once it starts affecting them.

People are already comfortable and used to other cultivars of other fruits. GMO isn't even necessary here, just other types of bananas.

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#44

Post by jedberg » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 3:57 AM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #39

jedberg wrote: post #28

> Other scientists—most notably, James Dale of the Queensland University of Technology in Australia—are testing genetically modified disease-resistant Cavendish bananas, but public acceptance of GMOs could prove a significant obstacle to their widespread adoption. This is the problem right here. The lack of science education. A banana modified in a lab and one that is bred through selective breeding are both "GMO", i…

While I agree that people should rely on science when determining the safety of food products, it's disingenuous to imply that selective breeding and GMO are the same thing, as it ignores the fact that many if not most GMO foods are transgenic with genes from other species and even kingdoms of life that would never find their way into the genome through selective breeding.

But you don't know that. Maybe they would randomly get that mutation in some generation that we would then breed for. All we're doing is speeding that up with science.

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#45

Post by roywiggins » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 3:58 AM UTC

icxa wrote: post #36

jedberg wrote: post #28

> Other scientists—most notably, James Dale of the Queensland University of Technology in Australia—are testing genetically modified disease-resistant Cavendish bananas, but public acceptance of GMOs could prove a significant obstacle to their widespread adoption. This is the problem right here. The lack of science education. A banana modified in a lab and one that is bred through selective breeding are both "GMO", i…

I'm pretty up to date on the science myself, and I still consider myself anti-GMO for a host of reasons, little to do with the science. My objections are more philosophical. two primary reasons: hubris and greed. The hubris to think we know which varietals are the best and will continue to be the best. We may go all in on one species or variant and then turns out an unknown bacteria we have previously no clue about w…

> The hubris to think we know which varietals are the best and will continue to be the best.

If they don't grow GMO Cavendish, they will pick some other variety and grow that everywhere, like they did after the Gros Michel went under. GMO doesn't seem to be a prerequisite for monoculture at all.

> the power of being able to still survive on pure nature's means

We haven't been able to do that since the dawn of agriculture. If modern agriculture disappeared tomorrow, the Cavendish plantations would not resemble Cavendish plantations very long, Panama disease or not.

The only problem I have with a "GMO Cavendish" is that it would likely be patented, which could create a company with some extraordinarily powerful IP, which is very dangerous. But that's a problem with the law, not GMOs per se.

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#46

Post by roywiggins » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 4:01 AM UTC

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #40

jedberg wrote: post #28

> Other scientists—most notably, James Dale of the Queensland University of Technology in Australia—are testing genetically modified disease-resistant Cavendish bananas, but public acceptance of GMOs could prove a significant obstacle to their widespread adoption. This is the problem right here. The lack of science education. A banana modified in a lab and one that is bred through selective breeding are both "GMO", i…

I understand the idea of selective breeding but GMO is more than that. It's very possible to move genes from very different organisms that would never be possible via selective breeding. The ones that come to mind are the glow in the dark organisms that used genes from 2 different types of animals that could never breed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCPtDVnaQ1w So no GMO does not equal selective breeding.

One alternative to GMO is to irradiate your organism until it randomly develops a mutation you like.

It's not "GMO" and isn't labeled as such, because it doesn't involve the same technical steps as inserting a fish gene into a tomato, or whatever, but you end up with an organism with de novo mutations that do... well, something, probably many things, and if you're lucky, something you want, that you can then use selective breeding to amplify. Voila, you've introduced a brand new, never-before-seen mutation, without any GMO.

Except it's stupid. It's an incredible amount of work, just to be able to produce something that isn't technically GMO, when you could reach in with CRISPR or whatever the new hot genetic tools are and do it much more close to exactly.

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#47

Post by helkafen » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 4:07 AM UTC

blondie9x wrote: post #22

What’s most scary is this. If the food can still be produced in a climate we have injured, will it even be nutritious? The answer is unfortunately no in most cases. Over farming leads to soil being turned over too much and plants that do not produce fruits and vegetables with vitamins. Another bad finding is high atmospheric carbon levels drive rice malnutrition. If rice then what else? And now a worsening climate is…

At least the soil issues can be fixed through regenerative practices, which also help mitigate climate change to some extent. Farmers should receive funding to safely transition to better practices.

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#48

Post by Aloha » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 4:09 AM UTC

autokad wrote: post #17

brink wrote: post #9

There's a GMO variety of the Cavendish that is resistant to the Panama Disease. https://www.accessscience.com/content/genetic-engineering-of...

I want to have GMO big mikes =(

I've always wanted to try a Big Mike

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#49

Post by PopeDotNinja » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 4:10 AM UTC

A short, recent discussion I posted on /r/AskScienceDiscussion...

"If Cavendish/dessert bananas get wiped out by some disease (e.g. Panama disease), how long would it take to cultivate a new dessert banana from wild growing options?"

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceDiscussion/comments/c75ct...

P.S. For the casually curious, /r/AskScienceDiscussion is a more forgiving, less strict place to ask questions than /r//r/AskScience. It's more ask Bill Nye in a podcast than pose a perfect question to pass the scientist mod filter.

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#50

Post by lvs » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 4:14 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #28

> Other scientists—most notably, James Dale of the Queensland University of Technology in Australia—are testing genetically modified disease-resistant Cavendish bananas, but public acceptance of GMOs could prove a significant obstacle to their widespread adoption. This is the problem right here. The lack of science education. A banana modified in a lab and one that is bred through selective breeding are both "GMO", i…

> The lack of science education. A banana modified in a lab and one that is bred through selective breeding are both "GMO", it's just that one is done in a targeted manner and the other relies on random luck in the mutations.

I've logged in just to say that this comment is so quintessentially HN, and it particularly entertains me to see these two sentences juxtaposed because of the lack of domain expertise that it belies.

There is indeed a material difference between genome engineering and breeding. In the former case, you might introduce a gene that expresses any arbitrary protein. For instance, you could introduce a gene that expresses a highly potent toxin, like ricin. That would surely be very bad! In the latter case -- when breeding for variants -- you would be hard pressed to get a castor bean to cross-breed with a banana. So the capabilities of molecular biology allow for a much wider range of possibilities than breeding, hence the importance of regulatory oversight and caution.

P.S. There has been a lot of talk recently about what's wrong with the culture on HN. I'll tell you exactly what it is: people write overly confident and flippant things far outside their areas of expertise. Many of you run websites and phone apps: you do not know much of anything about other areas. Why are you therefore writing about those topics on the internet with such feigned authority?