“Devastating” fungus may mean end of days for top banana – CBS News Details Alert sent: No Sites: PH Publish date: Wed 2013-Dec-18 Author: Aimee Picchi Channel: Pests/diseases Text (summary): The song “Yes, we have no bananas” may reflect reality in a few years, if a “devastating” banana fungus isn’t halted or new varieties aren’t developed. The fungus that attacks the popular Cavendish banana variety — which counts for more than 80 percent of banana exports — has now spread to Africa and the Middle East, Nature reports. Previously, the fungus had been only detected in Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, China and Australia, the science journal notes. But now the soil fungus, a strain of Fusarium oxysporum, has been found in Jordan and Mozambique, although it’s not clear how it arrived in those countries. The fungus is nearly impossible to get out of the soil, Nature notes. The pathogen rots banana plants, turning their tissues into a “putrefying mixture of brown, black, and blood-red” that smells like garbage, according to a 2011 New Yorker article about the emerging blight. “It’s a gigantic problem,” Rony Swennen of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, and a banana breeder at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Dar es Salaam, told Nature. Read more: www.cbsnews.com [English Locations Location Coordinates Zoom Relevance Show on map Taiwan 24°N 121°E 0.632 Costa Rica, Bicol, Philippines 12.4316°N 123.717°E 0.539 Mozambique 18.25°S 35°E 0.528 Jordan, Western Visayas, Philippines 10.6584°N 122.596°E 0.527 Belgium 50.8333°N 4°E 0.508 Indonesia 5°S 120°E 0.478 Philippines 13°N 122°E 0.476 Malaysia 2.5°N 112.5°E 0.475 Australia 25°S 135°E 0.472 Discovery Discoveries: Discovery method: Robot discovered URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/devastating-fungus-may-mean-end-of-days-for-top-banana/ Original language: English Original title: “Devastating” fungus may mean end of days for top banana – CBS News Original text (summary): The song “Yes, we have no bananas” may reflect reality in a few years, if a “devastating” banana fungus isn’t halted or new varieties aren’t developed. The fungus that attacks the popular Cavendish banana variety — which counts for more than 80 percent of banana exports — has now spread to Africa and the Middle East, Nature reports. Previously, the fungus had been only detected in Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, China and Australia, the science journal notes. But now the soil fungus, a strain of Fusarium oxysporum, has been found in Jordan and Mozambique, although it’s not clear how it arrived in those countries. The fungus is nearly impossible to get out of the soil, Nature notes. The pathogen rots banana plants, turning their tissues into a “putrefying mixture of brown, black, and blood-red” that smells like garbage, according to a 2011 New Yorker article about the emerging blight.
