Bad Moon Rising

Abstract

In the early 1990s, with my plant pathologist colleague, Liz Aitken, we attempted to convince the Australian banana industry that it was an essential long-term strategy for them to invest in banana genetic improvement. The local industry (like most others around the world) was based almost entirely on a single cultivar, the Cavendish banana. If you know your bananas, you will also know that the Cavendish, while a worthy workhorse, is not exactly the most flavoursome banana around. In addition to that, Cavendish bananas are vulnerable to some pretty savage fungal pathogens, including a couple of foliar pathogens known as yellow Sigatoka, and black Sigatoka, after the Sigatoka Valley in Fiji where they were first recorded. These pathogens are pretty lame though, because while they are economically troublesome, they can be controlled by regular application of fungicides and sanitation measures. This however is not the case with the biggest threat to banana production worldwide.