AbsoluteTruth t1_isrcams wrote
Reply to comment by mem_somerville in The Search Is on for Banana Ancestors | previously unknown ancestors discovered in sequence data by mem_somerville
It was pretty much wiped out by Panama Disease and once an area has Panama Disease it's pretty much impossible to cure it. The current main banana is also currently being wiped out by a new strain of Panama Disease.
There's actually a good chance bananas will disappear from grocery stores entirely over the next 15 years because there are no other types of banana that are nearly as edible as Gros Michel and Cavendish.
Once they're gone the only way to get them back to a world-consumed food will probably be GMOs.
SmoothBrainSavant t1_isrcm1c wrote
Its so odd that folks would rather try an bring back a wolly mammoth but not the king of bananas. Craziness
AbsoluteTruth t1_isrd1em wrote
It's because all GMO efforts so far have failed to yield a banana plant that's sufficiently resistant to Panama Disease.
The most successful effort so far has been a Cavendish/Gros Michel hybrid, but it's only got partial resistance to Panama Disease, and is particularly susceptible to black sigatoka, a different disease affecting banana plants.
The main issue is that edible bananas reproduce asexually and most banana trees are direct offshoots planted from prior trees rather than a new generation of plant, so they don't breed the same way other crops do in order to select for more robust variants.
SmoothBrainSavant t1_isrevmf wrote
Very cool. But also very sad.
amorphoussoupcake t1_ist5khj wrote
We’ll think of how many people you could feed with just one wooly mammoth compared to one banana.
Primeribsteak t1_iszddfb wrote
They already are GMOs, that word is rubbish and so highly misunderstood and misused. Selective breeding (and probably cloning plants, like nearly all bananas) is genetic modification, whether it originally is random mutation or not...modifying outcomes by choosing for specific genetic variables means GMO. Every single thing you eat is GMO.
Semantics aside, no one seems to take this seriously, it's wild that one of the cheapest and most sold fruits in the store will likely not exist as we know them in the "near" future. There are other, resistant bananas that probably even taste better, but are less Shippable, so banana prices will eventually increase to cover that increased complexity.
AbsoluteTruth t1_iszv6n2 wrote
Banana GMO afaik specifically requires splicing/lab GMO, as selection for traits through generations isn't possible (they're all same-generation offshoots of prior plants).
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