COMMERCIAL BANANA PLANTS ARE PERFECT CLONES OF ONE ANOTHER

Today, we have discovered that almost all commercial banana plants are perfect clones of each other and that most of them come from a single plant in Southeast Asia. Let's make this clear: there are about 1,000 different varieties of banana in the world today, and within each variety, most are clones, although some have some genetic diversity. But the 'banana' that has been sold in supermarkets around the world since the 1960s is the Cavendish banana.

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Most banana varieties are derived from hybrids of Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. When these two plants mate, the result is an almost completely sterile banana half-flower. The earliest evidence of the cultivation of these banana hybrids dates back 10,000-15,000 years, making this plant one of the oldest known cultivated plants. Because this mutant plant could not reproduce itself, farmers had to find another way to propagate the plants. There are several ways to do this, but the most popular is to take a shoot, called a cutting, from an existing plant and plant it elsewhere. Although the sprig has no roots, if it is placed in the right soil (sandy, moist soil) it will develop some over time. The banana plant gradually developed into the varieties we know today and was spread around the world, first by Arab traders and then by Spanish conquerors.

In this way, a hybrid plant that would normally have died very quickly was spared human intervention, who simply took shoots from already existing and desirable plants and spread them around the world. This has the advantage that the individual varieties are almost all perfect clones of each other, meaning that a Cavendish banana from an African Cavendish banana plant tastes and looks the same as a South American banana. However, there is one major drawback. Because they are clones, what kills one plant can kill all the others.

Banana apocalypse

Gros-Michel banana

Banana Gros Michel

Interestingly, the Cavendish banana wasn't the most popular banana in the world until the 1960s. In fact, it was relatively unknown to the masses, and even after the 1960s, the world's most popular banana, the Gros Michel or 'Big Mike', was preferred by companies and consumers alike. Companies preferred Gros Michel because it was easier to transport and could be stored longer than Cavendish before spoiling. They were also more popular with consumers because they could be stored longer and because they were larger, sweeter and generally considered tastier. The latter is one of the reasons why the Cavendish banana was the most popular in the world. Unfortunately, the world was forced to change bananas in the mid-20th century.

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What was the reason for this change? There was a banana apocalypse on a global scale. The downside of the fact that, within each banana variety, almost all bananas are clones of each other is that what kills or damages one banana plant also affects all other banana plants of the same variety. This is where Panama disease comes in, which has led to the near extinction of the Gros Michel banana. Panama disease is a type of fungus that lives in the soil and against which fungicides are not effective, making it a threat. There are several strains of this fungus, one of which has destroyed the commercial Gros Michel banana.

Around 1920, this particular strain of Panama disease first appeared in Sirname. From there, it quickly spread to the Caribbean and eventually throughout the banana-growing world. By the 1960s, banana growers were almost all bankrupt due to the mass extinction of Gros Michel and were desperately looking for a way to stay afloat. Thus was born the Cavendish banana, which is smaller but tastes similar to the Gros Michel banana, only less sweet and requires more care in transport and storage. However, in addition to the similar taste, resistance to the particular strain of Panama disease that destroyed Gros Michel bananas was also important. A few billion dollars of infrastructure conversion later, growers were able to switch to bananas, and the public accepted the new banana instead of the Gros Michel.

Unfortunately, a new strain of Panama disease, to which the Cavendish banana is not resistant, emerged in 1992 and is again threatening the world's most popular banana. This time, however, no similar replacement banana has yet been found among the approximately 1,000 existing varieties. Most banana varieties contain huge hard seeds along the soft, fleshy interior and generally do not taste like the bananas we are used to eating. A second banana apocalypse, if it occurs soon, before a new variety can be genetically modified or carefully bred, will likely bring about the end of the fruit as a popular commercial product.

Since the appearance of this new strain of Panama disease, it has already destroyed plantations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and Taiwan and is now spreading throughout Southeast Asia. It is also believed that it is only a matter of time before it spreads to Africa and Latin America, which would mean the end of Cavendish as a commercial product.

For this reason, there are extremely strict cultural rules and regulations in place to protect commercial plantations from infection. Some experts believe that this should be enough to prevent the commercial extinction of Cavendish bananas. However, many experts believe this is naïve, as similar efforts were made to protect the Gros Michel before it became economically extinct. Today, however, we have the advantage of better technologies that help us protect plantations. However, most experts believe it is only a matter of time before Cavendish bananas are no longer commercially available.

Additional facts:

Bananas do not grow on trees. Rather, they grow from a root structure that produces an above-ground stem. The plant is classified as a perennial, tree-like plant, and is in fact the largest flowering perennial.

Equally interesting is the fact that the banana plant is an herbaceous plant and that the banana itself is a berry.

More than 100 billion Cavendish bananas are consumed worldwide each year.

Cavendish bananas are named after William Cavendish, sixth Duke of Devonshire, who purchased one of the first specimens and developed cultivation for commercial use of the plant.

Bananas are among the world's healthiest natural foods, ounce for ounce. They contain almost no fat, are very low in calories and rich in vitamin B6, fiber and potassium. They also contain fair amounts of phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, iron, selenium, manganese, copper, zinc, vitamin A, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, niacin, folic acid, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K and pantothenic acid. According to the FDA, bananas are also known to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke and the risk of cancer.

Another popular fruit, which like bananas are all clones of each other, is the navel orange. They are almost all direct descendants and clones of a single tree that lived in Brazil in the mid-19th century.

A banana tree was once called a "hand." In this context, a single banana is called a "finger."

Americans eat more bananas than any other fruit: On average, each American consumes 26.2 kg of bananas per year. In fact, Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined.

The second most consumed fruit by Americans is the apple, at 16.7 kilograms per person per year.

Bananas are the world's fourth-largest agricultural product, after wheat, rice and corn.

The country with the highest average banana consumption per capita is Uganda. Ugandans consume on average about 500 kg of bananas per person per year.

In trade, bananas are harvested when they are still green. Harvesting, transport and delivery to supermarket shelves have to be perfectly timed because Cavendish bananas have a very limited ripening period. One picker tells of "waiting until you saw the ship coming over the horizon towards the port". At that point, they would frantically gather the bananas and hurry to get the harvest to the boats. Today, a slightly more sophisticated system is used, with radio networks replacing the 'ship watch' method. Bananas are also stored in fridges to slow down the ripening process, and barcode systems are used to track each hand.

One of the few other reasonably accepted banana varieties is the Goldfinger banana, which doesn't taste at all like a Cavendish or Gros Michel, but more like an apple. This variety is a banana hybrid created by Philip Rowe. It has not been commercially successful in most of the world, except in parts of Australia.

A single banana plant usually produces about twelve hands per bunch; a 'bunch' is the total production of a single plant at a time.

Over the past decade, collaborators in Brussels, Belgium, have been working to decode and manipulate banana genes. Their goal is to develop a modified Cavendish banana that is resistant to the new strain of Panama disease, as well as the less threatening black sigatoka (a type of worm), which also kills Cavendish banana plants.

Banana leaves are waterproof and generally very large. For this reason, in some parts of the world they are used as disposable plates and containers for food. They are also often steamed with other foods; the juice from the leaves protects the food from burning and gives it a sweet taste. These leaves also make excellent umbrellas.

In Japan, banana plants are especially prized for their fibres, which are used to make a variety of textiles, from tablecloths (with coarser fibres) to high-quality kimonos and kamishimos (with softer inner fibres).

Banana juice is an excellent natural adhesive because it is extremely sticky.

The term 'banana republic' was coined to describe states that are ruled behind the scenes or in public mainly by big banana companies, usually supporting a dictator whose main purpose is to protect the banana companies and ensure rich and cheap harvests.

The round dark center at the end of the Cavendish banana is not a seed, but the rest of what would be the reproductive core of the fruit, if it had one.

Hybrid bananas must be hand-raised, as cultivated bananas never reproduce sexually on their own. Instead, humans must collect pollen from male flowers and transfer it to receptive female flowers. From that point, it takes about four months for a pollinated plant to bear fruit. These fruits are then collected and turned into seeds. From each hand-pollinated plant, only about 1 in 300 bananas will produce a seed. Only about 1/3 of these seeds will germinate. About two years later, these new hybrids will bear their first fruit, and growers will be able to see if they have created something tasty and sustainable. The probability of one of these germinating seeds producing a durable hybrid is 1 in 10 000. If a sustainable hybrid is produced, these hybrids will be examined for favourable traits and possibly used to produce future hybrids. It goes without saying that creating banana hybrids in this way is a long and laborious process, with very little chance of producing a commercially viable banana hybrid before Cavendish is inevitably eradicated or genetically modified to allow it to survive.

Although Gros Michel is no longer suitable for mass cultivation, it still grows in some areas of the world that have been spared Panama disease, which led to its demise as a commercial product. For similar reasons, Cavendish is unlikely to be completely eradicated, although it is thought that it will eventually go the way of Gros Michel and Nic.