[Nasional-e] Banana could disappear as blight strikes

[Ambon]

Banana could disappear as blight strikes

James Meek

It is a freakish, doped-up, mutant clone that hasn't had sex for thousands
of years - and the strain may be about to tell on the fruitbowl favourite.
Scientists based in France have warned that, without radical and swift
action, in 10 years' time we really could have no bananas.Two fungal
diseases, Panama disease and black Sigatoka, are cutting a swath through
banana plantations, just as blight once devastated potato crops. But unlike
the potato and other crops where disease-resistant strains can be bred by
conventional means, making a fungus-free variety of banana is very
difficult.
Emile Frison, head of the Montpellier-based International Network for the
Improvement of Banana and Plantain, told Britain's New Scientist magazine
that the banana business could be defunct within a decade. The banana,
however, is the staple diet for some half billion people in Asia and Africa.
Almost all varieties of banana are cuttings - clones, in effect - of
naturally mutant wild bananas discovered by early farmers as long as 10,000
years ago. The rare mutation caused wild bananas to grow sterile, without
seeds. Those ancient farmers took cuttings of the mutants, then cuttings of
the cuttings.
Plants use reproduction to shuffle their gene pool, building up variety so
that part of the species will survive an otherwise deadly disease. Because
sterile mutant bananas cannot breed, they do not have that protection.
Commercial banana plantations were devastated in the 1950s when Panama
disease killed off the dominant variety, the Gros Michel. A resistant
variety, the Cavendish, filled the gap. But only massive amounts of
fungicide spray - 40 sprayings a year is common - keep Sigatoka at bay, and
a new version of Panama disease cannot be sprayed. The Amazon banana crop
has been devastated by the fungus and, according to Mr Frison, some parts of
Africa now face the equivalent of the Irish potato famine.
One possibility is GM bananas, but growers fear consumer resistance and are
pinning their hopes on better fungicides. A ray of hope comes from Honduran
scientists, who peeled and sieved 400 tonnes of bananas to find 15 seeds for
breeding. They found a fungus-resistant variety that could be grown
organically. If bananas don't disappear from shops by 2013, they will look,
and taste, different.

The Guardian Weekly 20-3-0123, page 7