Inside The Quest To Save The Banana From Extinction 1

Inside the quest to save the banana
from extinction – Part 1: History

Panama disease, an infection that ravages banana plants, has been sweeping across Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. The impact
has been devastating. In the Philippines alone, losses have totaled US$400m. And the disease threatens not only the livelihoods of everyone in
this US$44 billion industry but also the 400m people in developing countries who depend on bananas for a substantial proportion of their calorie
intake.
However, there may be hope. In an attempt to save the banana and the industry that produces it, scientists are in a race to create a new plant
resistant to Panama disease. To understand how we got here, we need to take a look back at the history of the banana. But not the jungles of
South-East Asia, where bananas are native, but via Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, former home of the politician and keen horticulturist
William Cavendish, the Sixth Duke of Devonshire.
In 1826, Cavendish employed a young and enthusiastic farmer’s son as his head gardener. This was Joseph Paxton, who went on use the
expertise he developed constructing experimental greenhouses at Chatsworth in designing the famed Crystal Palace in London.
Among the exotic specimens Paxton gathered for the duke was a short banana plant he purchased for £10 from the Dorking collection of the
late brewer Robert Barclay, who in turn had received it from the botanical garden in Pamplemousses on Mauritius. Paxton propagated and
tended the plant for three years until it eventually produced fruit for Lord Cavendish and his guests to enjoy.
Paxton’s success with the plant, which he named Musa Cavendishii after his patron, won him the Silver Medal at the 1835 Royal Horticultural
Society show. Following this fame, the nurserymen who had sold off Barclay’s collection tried to claim that the invoice for the plant should have
been for £100 instead of £10. Paxton did not pay the difference.
Then began the spread of the Cavendish around the world. Bananas have a long history of migration. Archaeological evidence suggests they
were first cultivated in South-East Asia and New Guinea at least 6,800 years ago, and had spread to Sri Lanka by 6,000 years ago and Uganda
by 5,250 years ago. After Europeans began crossing the Atlantic at
the end of the 15th century, the banana quickly followed, spreading
across the Caribbean and tropical parts of the Americas.
But the 18th century Age of Enlightenment started an important new
phase of propagation of varieties of banana collected on the scientific
voyages of the era by amateur and professional botanists and
gardeners. Many initially reached new territories because they were
shared between enthusiasts who planted them in botanical or private
gardens, just as Paxton did.
He and his successors continued the trend, giving many specimens
from Chatsworth to collectors and philanthropists and helping
distribute the Cavendish banana around the world. They made their
way to the Canary Islands, where they later came to be grown for
export, probably via the gardens of a Scottish stately home and a
wine merchant who immigrated to Tenerife. Specimens also reached
Jamaica, where they were planted in Bath Gardens in St Thomas in
1884.
John Williams, a missionary to the Pacific Islands was given Cavendish plants to provide food in the areas of his ministry. These specimens
were initially established in Samoa in 1838, and from there the plant spread to Tonga, Fiji, Tahiti, Hawaii and Australia, as well as the original
home of the banana, New Guinea. Williams did not see this himself as he was eaten in the New Hebrides in 1839 by islanders who were
presumably unenthusiastic about his message.
Meanwhile, the Gros Michel variety was taken from Myanmar to the St Pierre botanical garden in Martinique in the early 19th century by the
French cartographer and privateer Nicolas Baudin. From there it was taken to Jamaica in 1835 by the botanist Jean François Pouyat. And the
plants used to establish the banana export industry in the early 20th century probably came from these specimens.
The earliest known discovery of Fusarium wilt or Panama disease was actually in Australia in 1874. First the leaves of the banana trees stopped
growing. Then they started to curl and wilt. Eventually the trees dried out completely and died. In 1890, the disease was found in its namesake
country and over the next 30 years spread to most Caribbean and Central American countries.
It took a while to identify the cause, but in 1910, it was found to be the wilt fungus Fusarium oxysporum cubense. The plants died because the
channels that carry water and minerals from the roots to the leaves became blocked. It was initially thought that these conduits became clogged
by the fungus but we now know that the plant itself plugs them, presumably in a vain attempt to stop the fungus spreading.
Fusarium wilt was wiping out whole plantations in the world’s major banana-producing countries of Latin America. It threatened an industry so
important to this part of the world that some states had become known as banana republics because they were virtually governed by the
corporations that produced the crop.
Because bananas of the same type are virtually genetically identical, if one plant becomes infected, all of the other trees in a plantation are also
susceptible. This meant it was only too easy for Panama disease to sweep through huge expanses of vulnerable host plants. In many areas, all
of the trees were killed.
Without a cure or treatment, there was no way back for a plantation once the disease had taken hold. Estimates vary, but losses due to the
Panama disease epidemic may have reached US$2.3 billion, equivalent to about US$18.2 billion today.
Luckily, the banana companies realized that another variety of banana known as the “Cavendish”, unlike the “Gros Michel” type grown in Latin
America at the time, was almost completely resistant to Panama disease. From the 1950s, plantations of Gros Michel (or “Big Mike”) were
systematically cleared and replaced with Cavendish trees.
The Cavendish had rescued the industry, and for five decades it spread further around the world. Today, 99% of exported bananas and nearly
half of total production worldwide is of the Cavendish variety. But this strength has now become the banana industry’s greatest vulnerability.
Panama disease has returned, and this time the Cavendish is no longer resistant.
https://theconversation.com/the-quest-to-save-the-banana-from-extinction-112256

Inside The Quest To Save The Banana From Extinction 1

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Inside The Quest To Save The Banana From Extinction 1

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Inside The Quest To Save The Banana From Extinction 1

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Inside the quest to save the banana

from extinction – Part 1: History

You might also like