Tropical Race 4

That banana you might be having for breakfast is probably a Cavendish, the most widely available variety of one of the world’s most popular fruits. But a deadly fungus is on the march, and the Cavendish’s lack of genetic diversity is raising fears of a possible “bananapocalypse.”

The killer fungus, a strain of Panama Disease called Tropical Race 4 (TR4), has spread to China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Northern Territory of Australia, and it has recently been found in Africa and the Middle East. With its yellow peel and seedless fruit, the Cavendish makes up 95 percent of bananas sold worldwide, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. The previous dominant variety, the Gros Michel, was decimated by another form of the fungus in the 1950s.

Growers turned to the Cavendish, whose strength lies more in disease resistance than flavor. (One expert said it “had been considered something close to junk.”) The Cavendish is thought to have arrived in England in the 1800s from Mauritius, taking its name from the family in whose greenhouse it was cultivated. Missionaries eventually carried it to the Pacific islands. One scientist sees a silver lining in newly urgent efforts to save the seeds from wild bananas. “Race 4 is a threat,” he says, “but it’s also an opportunity to start growing more diversity.”

Remy Tumin
NYTimes, 2016/11/28

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michael

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May 2017

Comments

Actually Michael you have

Actually Michael you have many Gros Michel labels in the catalog. Standard Fruit & Steamship Company, today's Dole, used the Tropipac brand on Gros Michel bananas, placing the Cabana brand on Cavendish fruit in the 1960's. I have many old Tropipac labels, both the small round blue or green ones and the curved edge vertical rectangles, also in many color variants (blue, green, white, red, etc).

In more modern times Tropipac appeared again occasionally, but no longer on Gros Michel, but likely on secondary branded fruit, and with the arrival of the Dole brand from Hawaii (originally only on Pineapples), Cabana seemed to also become simply seconds, but of course Cavendish. Today you also find Bajella as a second Dole brand, along with Cabana and Cabanita, though I have not seen the latter in quite a few years.

So, the simple story is that Cabana (and Cabanita) were always Cavendish, and for years, in the 1960's-maybe early 1970's,Tropipac was only Gros Michel.

John