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Banana (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 6 days ago by mmmm@sopuli.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] kalapala@sopuli.xyz 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

The new banana isn't as sweet as the old banana and the old one doesn't seem to be coming back?

[-] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 11 points 6 days ago

Being monocultures, (genetic clones) commercially grown edible bananas are extremely vulnerable to disease.

The currently most popular variant is the Cavendish, replacing the earlier and now extinct Gros Michel, wiped out by the Panama Disease (a fungus).

While the Gros Michel isn't coming back, people are apparently trying to create and grow new variants, as what happened before can happen again.

[-] Manjushri@piefed.social 10 points 6 days ago

Do you mean the Gros Michel banana ? It went commercially extinct in the '60s due to a fungus. So, yeah, probably not coming back. Sadly, the Cavendish banana is also subject to the same fungus so may also get wiped out at some point in the future.

But Race 4 (also known as TR4 or fusarium wilt), the new version of Panama disease that started affecting crops in the subtropics in the 1980s and wiping them out, has since moved to infect crops in the Vietnam, Laos, Pakistan, India, Mozambique, and Australia. In 2019, Colombia declared a national disaster when it was discovered there. As it inches closer to Latin America, the likelihood of losing the Cavendish increases.

[-] kalapala@sopuli.xyz 2 points 6 days ago

I guess not as I remember having some actually tasty imported bananas in 90's. No idea what happened but currently only even a bit tasty ones are natural and really small and still not as sweet.