The Conversation - Yes, we might have no bananas tomorrow

Beneath canopies of swaying palm fronds looms an age-old threat nestled in sun-warmed soil.

It invades and damages nutrient-carrying vessels from bottom to top. It releases a toxic burst of gas that forces it past plant defenses. It infects over 120 species, including humans. It felled a multibillion-dollar industry before, and it’s gearing up to do so again.

That’s right: Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense Tropical race 4 (or TR4, for short) is coming for your bananas.

Genomicist Li-Jun Ma of UMass Amherst has spent the past 10 years studying Fusarium oxysporum. Her lab’s latest research, published yesterday, reveals another facet of this fungus’s multipart genome that’s enabling its destruction of the banana variety found in most American grocery stores today – and also provides a potential avenue to stop it.

But you don’t have to be a scientist to play an important role in turning the tides of this banana war. “It can be hard to imagine how a consumer who simply enjoys eating bananas could participate in the battle against the disease devastating banana crops,” she writes. “However, consumers determine the market, and farmers are forced to grow what the market demands.”

This week we also liked articles about why Americans may think twice about free speech, what can go wrong when cities rely on bonds to fund the maintenance and repairs of their public school buildings, and how a debate about the racial identity of the main character in the “Harold and the Purple Crayon” books arose.

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