A World Without Bananas

[Provost Harrison]

How could I manage? It would be too much for me, and I am sure many others, to take, if this wonderful fruit disappear. You see, I don't really 'do' fruit, the banana is really the only exception

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2664373.stm

[OneFootInTheGrave]

No but it is a GM banana. I am wondering when Ford will start selling some

[Garth Vader]

Re: A World Without Bananas

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
You see, I don't really 'do' fruit, the banana is really the only exception

Talk about a statement that can be taken many different ways

[TCO]

EU and US need to put down their banana wars and unite against the common enemy.

[Japher]

Noooooo!!!!

I was just reading up on banana's today too... This is a tragedy.

Really, I was reading on banana's.

The book I was looking at, a reputable book of trivia that ussually resides on the back of my toilet, was saying that bananas are the reason for city beautification acts, hindering of the plague (or some other diseases like the plague), and the cleaning up of our streets.

The banana became a popular treat among the lower class back in the days when their was no public garbage collection system, and that the yellow peal of the banana allowed for the people to realize how messy their streets actually were when the peal would get discarded, onto the street.

Then some religious mag. lied and said that some guy slipped on peal and had to have his leg amputated. Ppl became weary of the peals, and soon began cleaning up their streets.

The lowly banana, gone for ever...

At least we can still remember that lovely flavor through technologically advanced candy called Runts!

[MosesPresley]

Originally posted by GP
EU and US need to put down their banana wars and unite against the common enemy.

Yes the evil mangoes!

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Look at tis:

One ray of hope comes from Honduran scientists, who peeled and sieved 400 tonnes of bananas to find 15 seeds for breeding. They have come up with a fungus-resistant variety which could be grown organically. If bananas don't disappear from supermarket shelves by 2013, they will look, and taste, different.

there is future in non-GM bananas afterall... I am wandering just how can sterile bananas have seeds And how come that nothing not a single "tree" or whatever left from the 1940's dominant species

[Provost Harrison]

Well I've made my introduction and now for my serious rant. There needs to be a program. Now I think the best course of action would not be a program of genetic modification (directly), as this just puts in resistance genes that are usually overcome by the pathogen in a short period of time, but a process of outbreeding and developing new cultivars. Genetic diversity is the name of the game here, if they introduce that to the banana world, you wouldn't wipe out all bananas with a blight like this but perhaps a single cultivar which can be replaced. We need to get to work generating new cultivars of banana which can withstand such an attack. Look at potatoes, exactly the same. With one cultivar, like in Ireland, a blight can wipe out the entire crop. With diversity, you cause damage, sure, but you can replace and still have bananas.

That is my sound biological reasoning for the night.

[MosesPresley]

My bad, I didn't know this was a serious thread.

[Lancer]

I know alot of people who eat bananas as a major part of their diet. In the Philippines it's different than in the west where we might pick up bananas once in a while. There they fry them for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. At the center of the huge bunches of bananas is what they call the heart. Poor people who can't afford meat cook the heart up in a certain way for their families.

Anyway, if this blight takes hold there the famine that would result would be horrific. The thought of no bananas makes me cringe.

Provost is right, something needs to be done quickly.

[lightblue]

Damn, can you imagine sieving 400 tonnes of bananas for 15 seeds... And I thought my PhD project was bad

[Buck Birdseed]

I don't understand the premise of the article at all- the variety of banana we eat in the west is one of hundreds of different types ranging from "Baby's Fingers" (Small, fat bananas with a very peculiar sweet taste) via the small green bananas that were the standard fruit banana when we lived in Tanzania and giant, red, dry banas to flour and food bananas that are inedible raw but can be used for a variety of cooking purposes (tastes a bit like Potato). In fact, I wouldn't mind the reduction in amounts of the large yellow banana we eat, it's quite boring in taste comparatively.

[Dr. Nick]

*watches Ecuadorian economy plummet*

Damn.

[statusperfect]

No bananas??? This thread is offensive!!! Provost Harrison will enjoy lifetime in Mingapulco when the moderators find it.

[Provost Harrison]

I am no stranger to Mingapulco

Anyway, yes, it is a serious issue. The banana is a staple in many countries, apparently in Uganda the average person consumes over 100 bananas a week. You imagine the damage if the crop was destroyed?

Snappy, the reference was to the Cavendish banana which is the most common type, and due to the nature that they are reproduced from cuttings, they are all virtually genetically identical, or very similar. What gets one, gets any other of them. Hence my demand for more cultivars of the same kind of banana.