There are actually a great many varieties of bananas out there, both
seeded and non-seeded. But even the non-seeded bananas can be coaxed to
produce seed, tho it takes a lot of bananas to find that pea-sized seed.
Nevertheless, the threat isn't about musa in general - but against the
agriculture around it. People worship uniformity in their produce. The
main sweet banana that was in production - Gros Michel - was exclusively
used back before the 60's. As you may know, cultivars are clones - each
Gros Michel was genetically identical to the other, world wide. A
disease broke out and the practice of starting new plantations with
infected rhizomes spread it thru-out the growing region and within a
decade, Gros Michel was no longer suitable as a crop banana. A variety
of Cavendish replaced Gros Michel since it was resistant to the Fusarium
wilt that was plaguing Gros Michel. However, the problem is - the same
Cavendish is also now cultivated world-wide. Without genetic diversity
in the crop, a disease that hit's one crop can as easily wipe out the
other. While we keep our crops static by using genetic clones, diseases
like Fusarium wilt is free to mutate and evolve. Why this affinity to
cultuvars? Because consumers demand it. We simply must have that 9" long
yellow nanner that is just sweet enough but not too sweet and firm but
not too firm - these cultivars are bred and bred until one is found to
match this market requirement and when it proves itself in the market it
becomes king - the banana to grow. Same thing is happening to chocolate
too, by the way. Most chocolate nowadays is produced from genetic clones
and there's very little genetic diversity, which is resulting in an
inability to adapt to new diseases such as witches broom disease that
have no such compulsion to remain static.
So - in time our favorite yellow Cavendish will be out and they'll find
another yellow banana to fill it's shoes. And it will suffer the same
fate and soforth. Tis the nature of the industry and it keeps breeders
in business.
I grow nanners that you'll rarely if ever find on grocery shelves. Red
skinned nanners, short nanners, angular nanners, apple-tasting nanners,
starchy cooking nanners, etc... And there are many many more yet for me
to collect. Like one that grows 2' long plantains, a nanner that
produces 2 bunches from the same pseudostem, etc...
Bananas have been bred and cultivated for thousands of years, so they're
not going anywhere as a whole. With breeding - these bananas can be made
to produce seed by crossing - but it takes a *lot* of bananas - hundreds
or thousands - to find that one seed, and several seeds are needed to
weed out inferior nanners. There are breeding projects currently and
constantly underway so I wouldn't worry about nanners just disappearing
- but a change will happen sooner or later and a new yellow nanner will
grace your grocer's shelves...
Be well,
Mike
--
Zone 8, Texas
http://www.taroandti.com/ Exotic Plants and More...
http://www.mjv.com/ Home...
garden03048 wrote:
Well, I'm doing my part with my 9 nanner plantation. HA
Wayi
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you seem like the one to ask:
I think I read bananas are doomed to extinction since they can no
longer be reproduced sexually and all the clones are diseased. Know
anything about that?
tia
anthony NH zone 5
