[Keith_McClary]

Six decades after a banana-killing fungus all but wiped out plantations across Latin America, a new strain threatens to destroy global harvests.
A type of Fusarium wilt appeared this year in Australia’s main banana-growing state after spreading to Asia and Africa. While the fungus has been around since the 1990s and has yet to affect top exporter Ecuador, Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. called it a potential “big nightmare.” The United Nations says the disease threatens supply, and Latin American growers are taking steps to limit the risk.
The industry survived the demise of the top-selling Gros Michel banana in the 1950s by switching to a different variety, called the Cavendish. But this time, there’s no ready substitute.
...
“The monoculture, the reliance on a single banana breed that makes all this possible -- that makes the low margins work -- also makes that fruit very susceptible to disruption,” said Dan Koeppel, who has traveled to 30 countries to sample varieties and wrote Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. “The biggest problem is disease.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/1165 ... amity.html

[Shaved Monkey]

I have a banana growers licence.
I have a few plants 6 different varieties.
All had to be grown in a certified lab from tissue culture to be legal.
If a banana has seeds (some genetically throw back) they have to be destroyed.
Most Queenslanders have a Lady Finger or 2 growing in their backyard
The commercial varieties are mainly Cavendish (its illegal to grow that in your backyard)
Its illegal to move bananas around the states they grow in and even between designated regions with in the state and we do have Smut and Panama Disease in Australia.
A few farms got quarantined a month or so back in FNQ,it wiped out the Banana industry in NT back in the 90s.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-22/p ... ns/6413412

[SeaGypsy]

Black sigatoka leaf spot disease has caused the NT to eradicate bananas again shaved, final holdouts are in court right now. It is going to take years to be sure its safe to start again probably. The latest melon virus has triggered a 2 year melon ban in Katherine region.