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

nationalgeographic.com

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

#171

Post by 0xffff2 »

LgWoodenBadger wrote: post #151
disillusioned wrote: post #96

Fun banana facts: Bananas are the most-sold item at most grocery stores and, notably, Wal-Mart. Bananas also have the highest standard deviation in terms of predicting if a given (known) consumer will purchase bananas in a given store run. (At least as compared to other food products and consumables.) When predicting a consumer's shop, it's generally pretty easy to make a highly educated guess about their purchasing…

From my days working in software for the retail market about 20 years ago, we had to build functionality to allow the exclusion of bananas and milk from our predictive analytics application because EVERYBODY bought them. Probably over 99% of retail grocer transactions contained them.

As someone who despises bananas outside of banana bread, I find this episode of Banana Facts completely shocking. I always thought is was like cilantro, where some people think it tastes like soap. I guess I'm the only one who has to suppress my gag reflex whenever someone peels a banana within smelling distance?

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

#172

Post by carapace »

lioeters wrote: post #18

"Yes! We Have No Bananas" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes!_We_Have_No_Bananas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gros_Michel_banana

> This 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 song is from 1923, so likely no connection to the great banana blight, eh? Too bad, I thought so too.

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

#174

Post by ksaj »

ferzul wrote: post #128
ksaj wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly the damage is already done. But at least there are new cultivars coming out sooner or later. Here's one: https://patents.justia.com/patent/PP28625 But how new is it? As I've alluded (it would take a full article to really get into this), even this new cultivar is... Cavendish. And it's patented. Just like all the other Cavendish bananas that comprise the only bananas you can ever find unless you happen to live…

What are ladyfinger bananas, if not non-cavendish bananas available in supermarkets (so cultivated) in southeast Australia (so outside of southeast Asia)? Sure, they're more expensive than cavendish so i only take them when regular bananas are unavailable. But they're functionally non-cavendish bananas available in a place they aren't native.

I didn't know until researching my reply here, that Canada (where I live) actually locally farms the mini Ladyfingers available in our markets. Talk about 180 degrees of separation.

Similarly they are expensive, and people mainly opt for the larger/cheaper Cavendish. I always thought the mini Ladyfingers are more child friendly both for size and for sweetness, but rarely see them outside of fancy fruit salads. It's still very much a mono-culture, even when there are outliers.

So yes, my black/white statement should have been more of a 90/10 fuzzy grey one.

There is very little (financial) incentive to go up against Cavendish in an attempt to compete, because anything you need to do to find a tasty cultivar with thicker skins and stable shipping/handling will continually run into Cavendish related patents in the process.

BTW: Sadly, even though the Ladyfinger bananas are distinct from Cavendish, they are equally susceptible to the same deadly plant diseases. If one disappears, so probably does the other. Our temporary diversion is back on track with the subject at hand.

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

#175

Post by chewbacha »

Shorel wrote: post #169
bipson wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People hated the seedy variants. It was more seeds than fruit and messy to eat. Note: you could not eat the seeds it seems (large and hard)

There are a lot of sizes for the seeds. I have never seen the 'more seeds than fruit' you mention. I do remember eating bananas where the seeds where all about 0.3 mm to 0.5 mm.

Those aren't viable seeds. Cavendish bananas (or other bananas that are cross-breeds) have 3 chromosomes (triploidy) since they are cross bread between a diploid (2) and a tetraploid (4). These triploidy cells cannot perform mitosis and thus do not enlarge in the banana. They still have "seeds" but they are so tiny that they pass right through our digestive track and don't break our teeth.

If you see a viable seed it's going to be quite large, looking like 5-10 mm each: https://www.quora.com/Diploid-bananas-have-seeds-How-many-se...

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

#176

Post by bad_user »

mlyle wrote: post #165
bad_user wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * A banana modified in a lab and one that is bred through selective breeding are both "GMO"* Not really. The difference is that selective breeding takes a lot of time and for the species that we eat today we've had hundreds to thousands of years to observe if it harms us or not. When new drugs or foods get approved for consumption, the tests being made are for how our body affect the eaten food, and the assessment…

It seems like your argument works in reverse. Selective breeding-- who knows what changes you're making to the underlying food. When I taste a "cotton candy grape", there's likely a whole lot of chemical difference from a normal grape, in mostly-unknown-ways. Whereas with GMO we can be assured it's a very small set of edits that we can more readily assess the safety of.

It doesn't work that way. Literally every fruit, legume and vegetable you're eating, that you're not hand picking from a forest, is the result of selective breeding and this has been going on since agriculture happened, from around year 10,000 BC at least.

It's not perfect, since the selective breeding we've been doing has been for diluting the proteins and increasing the energy per acre. And there are still plenty of concerns with various seeds we've been eating, like wheat, corn or soy, but interestingly these are also the playground for GMO research and that research hasn't been about making them safer for humans, but rather for increasing the yield, protecting patents and for reduced pesticide use ... which should raise further concerns about their safety ;-)

When I'll see GMOs meant for making consumption by humans safer, those are the GMOs I'm ready to buy into, but not until then.

---

> with GMO we can be assured it's a very small set of edits that we can more readily assess the safety of

I don't believe that we can readily assess their safety, because I've been interested in and studying nutrition and I know how science in this field works.

But if you know more on this subject, please provide details.

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

#177

Post by dole »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #167
disillusioned wrote: post #96

Fun banana facts: Bananas are the most-sold item at most grocery stores and, notably, Wal-Mart. Bananas also have the highest standard deviation in terms of predicting if a given (known) consumer will purchase bananas in a given store run. (At least as compared to other food products and consumables.) When predicting a consumer's shop, it's generally pretty easy to make a highly educated guess about their purchasing…

> banana ripening centers that pump ethylene through a chilled chamber to get them to ripen. Thanks for sharing this. I've read a few things like this one, regarding "ripening centers" for various fruits, including apples and strawberries. I am not sure that a banana stays "healthy" after going through a toxic gas - well, apparently the normal concentrations are not toxic to humans [0]: "Ethylene has been found not h…

Similarly, meat processors pump carbon monoxide into meat packaging to keep it looking cosmetically fresher/redder.

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

#178

Post by caymanjim »

spraak wrote: post #43
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.

From the article:

> Besides the Cavendish bananas that dominate modern supermarket shelves, residents of banana-producing nations rely on a multitude of local varieties, including plantains, for their food security. Panama disease TR4 has a notoriously broad host range, meaning it threatens nearly all of these varieties to some degree.

Unfortunately, pretty much all banana species are vulnerable. Even if Cavendish is the most-affected, replacing Cavendish with another cultivar isn't a complete solution. Other banana cultivars don't have the same properties, and breeding a replacement dessert banana that is resistant, and then spreading that cultivar (and hoping that it too doesn't fall prey) is not a trivial undertaking.

If a GMO solution can save the existing cultivars, which have established consumers, it's a better approach. Since all bananas are grown using monoculture grafting (because we long ago bred the seeds out), it's not as easy to produce new cultivars as with other fruits.

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

#179

Post by lioeters »

carapace wrote: post #172
lioeters wrote: post #18

"Yes! We Have No Bananas" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes!_We_Have_No_Bananas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gros_Michel_banana > This 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 song is from 1923, so likel…

I believe you're right, the song predates any widespread fungus issue with bananas. Would have been cool if the lyrics had been a satire / poke at the situation.

I did find the following note about the song:

> In 2008, The New York Times ran an op-ed, with the title "Yes, We Will have no Bananas", regarding the outcome of fungal diseases afflicting the Cavendish Banana

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/opinion/18koeppel.html

So we weren't the first to make the pun/connection - great minds think alike? :) I deserved the downvotes though, I knew it when I posted the flippant comment.

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

#180

Post by trehalose »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #167
disillusioned wrote: post #96

Fun banana facts: Bananas are the most-sold item at most grocery stores and, notably, Wal-Mart. Bananas also have the highest standard deviation in terms of predicting if a given (known) consumer will purchase bananas in a given store run. (At least as compared to other food products and consumables.) When predicting a consumer's shop, it's generally pretty easy to make a highly educated guess about their purchasing…

> banana ripening centers that pump ethylene through a chilled chamber to get them to ripen. Thanks for sharing this. I've read a few things like this one, regarding "ripening centers" for various fruits, including apples and strawberries. I am not sure that a banana stays "healthy" after going through a toxic gas - well, apparently the normal concentrations are not toxic to humans [0]: "Ethylene has been found not h…

Ethylene oxide is a completely different chemical from ethylene. They're as different as methane and formaldehyde. Ethylene oxide is an epoxide, a class of chemicals that are generally extremely reactive. Ethylene is a simple hydrocarbon.
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