The bananas in your supermarket and that you eat for breakfast are facing functional extinction due to the disease Fusarium wilt of banana (FWB), caused by a fungal pathogen called Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (Foc) tropical race 4 (TR4).
Attempting to preserve this variety may not be very viable unless they genetically alter it, or keep a large enough population alive in a clean environment for a decade until all the other ones die and the fungus is diminished. Seems easier to just grow a different variety maybe, but not as commercially viable at that point? I don’t know enough about how/why bananas are as cheap as they are (aside from the awful bits of the industry).
Fusarium spores are viable in the soil for more than 30 years. They also tend to infect multiple species, once they are in a region they are there for good. The spores are transmitted around the world in on seeds or soil. The spores are found at a very low rate (like 1:1,000,000,000) on the surface of many species of seeds. It’s well below the detection level of any test.
They are cheap because they are a commodity and exploit low paid workers.
Funguses like fusarium scare me. They lie in wait for us to die so they can breakdown our bodies for molecular scrap. They eat our food, our homes, even live inside of us. Some don’t even have the decency to wait until death and start to dig in while we’re still alive. It’s been a cool, wet summer where I live an blight is already already starting to emerge in my tomato plants. My worst nightmares center around being consumed by mold.
Attempting to preserve this variety may not be very viable unless they genetically alter it, or keep a large enough population alive in a clean environment for a decade until all the other ones die and the fungus is diminished. Seems easier to just grow a different variety maybe, but not as commercially viable at that point? I don’t know enough about how/why bananas are as cheap as they are (aside from the awful bits of the industry).
Fusarium spores are viable in the soil for more than 30 years. They also tend to infect multiple species, once they are in a region they are there for good. The spores are transmitted around the world in on seeds or soil. The spores are found at a very low rate (like 1:1,000,000,000) on the surface of many species of seeds. It’s well below the detection level of any test.
They are cheap because they are a commodity and exploit low paid workers.
So then transplanting and treating with UV would work for seeds or shoots. Fusarium can’t tolerate UV, or above ground fungicides.
Bananas are clonally propagated. The pathogen is inside the vascular tissue. No way to get rid of it from plants once infected.
Fusariums have developed resistance to many fungicides. They keep becoming resistant to more.
Funguses like fusarium scare me. They lie in wait for us to die so they can breakdown our bodies for molecular scrap. They eat our food, our homes, even live inside of us. Some don’t even have the decency to wait until death and start to dig in while we’re still alive. It’s been a cool, wet summer where I live an blight is already already starting to emerge in my tomato plants. My worst nightmares center around being consumed by mold.