GMOs (genetically modified organisms) were created by interweaving genes from other organisms, like bacterias, to give plants the best traits. Up until the 1950s the most common banana was the Gros Michel. However, the Gros Michel was wiped out by a fungus called fusarium oxysporum. Fusarium oxysporum caused Panama disease. The fungus invaded the roots of the banana plants and couldn’t be controlled chemically. To add to the problem, all Gros Michel bananas were identical clones. This meant that Gros Michel banana were all exposed to this fungus, causing it to spread across many banana plantations. The Cavendish banana, the banana we eat in our everyday lives, was chosen as a replacement for the Gros Michel because it is resistant to the fusarium oxysporum fungus.
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| Wild Banana |
Modified bananas do have a benefit, these bananas are selectively bred to have really small non-fertile seeds. Wild bananas have big, hard seeds and very little flesh. Without the genetic modification bananas wouldn’t be very edible. Instead of using seeds, commercial banana trees are reproduced by using banana pups. The banana tree forms rhizomes that form into a little tree known as a pup that can be removed and planted somewhere else.
This means that each new banana plant has to be manually planted from a cut of an existing banana root. This process can be hazardous because if a disease was able to infect the Cavendish banana, all Cavendish bananas could become affected very quickly. Every single Cavendish banana is genetically the exact same. Recently, scientists have made advances that allow the editing of fruits, like bananas and other crops, without the need to add foreign genes. These edited bananas could create “super bananas” that produce more vitamin A. Super bananas might be a way to help with malnutrition. A lack of vitamin A in a diet is one of the factors that scientists have claimed can cause death in children. These bananas are full of beta carotene, which is what the body uses to create vitamin A. This new banana will be tested on humans at a cost of $10 million dollars. Researchers will monitor vitamin A levels to see if they increase with the consumption of the super bananas. If the experimentation goes well, super bananas could be growing in Africa by 2020.
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| Banana Plant pup |
Sources:
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184435-genetically-engineered-super-banana-could-save-millions-of-lives
Before 1965, we had the Gros Michel Banana; they tasted better, lasted longer, were more resilient and did not require artificial ripening, but a fungal disease, called the Panama disease, that started in Central America quickly spread to most of the world's commercial banana plantations, which lead to them having to burn all of them down, which is why we have the current, Cavendish cultivar; it isn't as good, but is immune to the disease.
ReplyDeleteThere is a new strain of Panama disease that puts the most commercial and most widely grown banana species at risk, because once it infects one of them, it can easily infect the rest of them. How likely do you think tis might happen again, that the most commercial fruit might be at risk once again?
ReplyDeleteAlthough another "banana extinction" is rather likely at some point, scientists are already developing a new strain of banana, which is much less susceptible to diseases, including the ones you previously mentioned.
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