MOS: Banana Wilt

This will be my third column about bananas and I have to really crank up the dick jokes this time by an inch or two.

Or, perhaps, it’s time to let them go limp.

Today’s Moment of Science… Banana wilt.
(Happens to the best of us, big guy.)

It’s hard to think of a time when bananas weren’t well known as God’s perfect creation: a long fruity snack for Kirk Cameron to wrap his sinful little paws around. The first banana farm in the US opened in Florida in 1876, the same year it was on exhibit at the Philadelphia Centennial. I’ve been assured that in an era when people were banging out children by the dozen, nobody so much as hinted at a blowjob joke regarding the creamy phallic treat.

It wasn’t long before demand for bananas in the US went, well, freaking bananas. The Boston Fruit Company got into the banana importing business. Through a merger in 1899 they became something more sinister, the United Fruit Company. Eventually the organization became less known for importing bananas than they were for exerting monopolistic control over the industry throughout vast sections of South and Central America using any means necessary. United Fruit was nicknamed ‘el pulpo’ (the octopus) for having its tentacles in absofuckinglutely everything. The company even ran the Guatemalan postal service at one point; by the 1930s, it was the single largest landowner in the country.

At the, uh, gentle nudging of United Fruit’s directors, the CIA (allegedly or whatever) coup’d a democratically elected leader in Guatemala. Because honestly, how else would they be able to keep exploiting human suffering for a crop with a bit of a fatal yeast infection?

Speaking of.

Humans aren’t the the only species that deal with government propagated false flag attac- I mean plagues. Fusarium oxysporum is the pathogen that causes Fusarium wilt, also known as Panama disease. Naturally. But this fungus is not just one thing, it’s more like 100 things of fuck-your-crops. At least 100 formae speciales, literally ‘special forms,’ have been identified. This is a taxonomic classification applied to groups within a species of parasites (like infectious fungi) that have adapted to feast on specific host organisms.

Tomatoes, tobacco, sweet potatoes, cantaloupes, and of course bananas are affected by their uniquely matched F. oxysporum. Depending on which forma specialis spore drops into a farm, it can spell a devastating harvest for one crop, but only one.

F. oxysporum f. sp. cubense causes banana wilt and will likely spell dead plants for everyone cultivating anywhere nearby. It grows and spreads through soil. A banana plant is typically first infected at the roots. Through the course of the infection, the flow of water and vital nutrients are blocked to the rest of the tree. The leaves typically become yellow at the tips, wilting.

The bananas of an infected plant are unaffected and safe to eat (as one Australian website pointed out though, bananas infected with a case of the wilt just aren’t all that marketable). The plant, on the other hand, will almost inevitably die in soil that will kill the next banana plant, and the one after that.

The bananas shipped by United Fruit Company a century ago looked a bit different than what we’re used to now. Known as the Gros Michel, aka the Big Mike, it was sweeter, a bit straighter, and significantly girthier (hey now) than its modern counterpart. It also had a thick skin and didn’t bruise too easily.

Then… wilt, and utter disappointment with our new boyfriend, the Cavendish.

Bananas are all genetic clones, so if one plant of a particular variety is prone to a disease, they are all- technical term- imperially shitwrecked. In the 1960s, Panama disease damn near wiped out the Gros Michel (they’re not extinct but they’re not viable for growing on a commercial scale). The people still wanted bananas though. The fungus is host-specific enough that, perhaps, there existed a cultivar sufficiently resistant to be planted in this wilt-salted Earth.

Behold, the goddamn Cavendish. It’s been described as having less of a floral aroma than its predecessor. The texture isn’t as creamy. It bruises much more easily, making shipping more of a hassle. But yes sir, we have some bananas. These clones are resistant to banana wilt and will be for a long, long ti-

Wait what now?

It was only a matter of time before F. oxysporum f. sp. cubense would find its way into the roots of the Cavendish plant. And since they’re clones… we’re doing this again, aren’t we?

At the moment, a variety of approaches are being researched to combat this tale as old as banana republics. Traditional fungicides have all the effectiveness of insulting its mother. At this point, crop rotation and genetic modification have shown some potential. Given where we are now, it’s questionable if growing one main cultivar with resistance is the way around this… again.

But we want the goddamn bananas. Inevitably, we’ll end up planting, shipping, and eating whatever pale imitation of the last good-enough banana grows.

This has been your Moment of Science, just letting you know the United Fruit Company didn’t go away; it rebranded as Chiquita.

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