Banana is not easy to grow, banana banana sigh!
Bananas are arguably one of the most common fruits in our lives. However, as you may not imagine, the ubiquitous banana is one of the most difficult fruits to cultivate in human history. Few people know that bananas have nearly gone extinct several times in history. The most recent was in the 1950s, less than a hundred years ago. At that time, there was a hit song in the United States called "Yes! We Don't Have Bananas Today", which tells the embarrassing situation when Americans did not have bananas to eat. Americans love to eat sweets, bananas are close to desserts in terms of taste and sweetness, and are natural foods. So in the United States, bananas can be said to be a must-have food on the table. In American movies and TV series, bananas can always be seen on the table.
The dominant banana variety of the time, the Big Mack banana, which is now the source of the taste of many "banana milk" drinks, was almost completely extinct around 1950. Only a small fraction currently exists in Thailand.
Such an endangered survival crisis has been encountered many times in history by bananas.
This is because bananas are grown in a special way. In order to ensure the market and quality, so that the size and taste of each banana are exactly the same, bananas are asexually propagated by cuttings.
This means that most of the same variety of bananas grown worldwide are asexual breeding offspring of the same plant, so once a fatal disease occurs to a certain banana variety, almost all bananas of that variety have no defense gene against this disease, and the variety will be completely destroyed and face extinction.
China also has a history of wild banana cultivation, wild bananas and wild plantains in ancient times were collectively referred to as "plantains". "Streamers are easy to throw people away, red cherries, green plantains", bananas as an important cultural symbol written by the ancients, the earliest can be traced back to before the Southern Song Dynasty. However, in the following thousands of years, China's plantain cultivation has always stayed in the stage of poetry and song and garden landscaping, and has not opened up to the aspect of edibles.
Several banana extinction crises in history have all been caused by banana blight.
The blight fungus is a soil fungus, the germ can be spread with the wind, the infected banana tree will rot from the inside out, quickly wither, and the land contaminated with the spores will no longer be able to grow the same variety of bananas. The last "shipwrecked" banana variety, the "Big Mac" we mentioned earlier, died because of "Banana Blight No. 1 Species".
Bananas with blight
At present, the most common banana variety on the market is "Hua Banana", also known as "Fragrant Bud Banana", which is naturally immune to "Banana Blight No. 1 Species". In response to the menacing "banana blight No. 1" epidemic, in 1939, standard fruit was planted in Honduras on a trial basis, and in 1947, the original "Big Mac" banana was abandoned and began to export fragrant bananas, which have since become the world's main banana varieties.
However, a few years ago, there was a saying on the Internet that "bananas are going to go extinct". That's because the deadly disease of "Chinese bananas", "Banana Blight No. 4 Species", appeared.
Banana blight No. 4 species, referred to as TR4, was first found in Taiwan, China, which not only harms "Chinese banana". It can also cause the onset of almost all varieties of commercial bananas on the market.
So, are bananas really going extinct?
The answer, of course, is no!
On November 19, 2021, at the China Agricultural and Rural Science and Technology Development Summit Forum and the China Modern Agricultural Development Forum, the new variety of blight-resistant high-quality characteristic bananas cultivated by the Institute of Pomology of Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences , 'Powder Miscellaneous No. 1' was selected as "2021 China Agricultural and Rural Major New Products".
The birth of "Powder Variety No. 1" means that we don't have to be afraid of not being able to eat bananas at present!
Powder Miscellaneous No. 1
"Pink Miscellaneous No. 1" is a hybrid of wild long-stemmed banana and powdered banana.
The long-stemmed banana has the characteristics of strong resistance to cold, drought, flood, wind and so on, and hybridizes with the powder banana to obtain a highly resistant variety - "Powder Miscellaneous No. 1". The banana of the "Powder Variety No. 1" variety has high resistance to the disease of "Banana Blight No. 4" and medium resistance to the disease of "Banana Blight No. 1". The excellent disease resistance of "Powder Za No. 1" has re-presented the scene of banana forests in the Pearl River Delta area with severe blight. At the same time, its wind resistance, waterlogging resistance, cold resistance are very strong, but also suitable for dense planting, long shelf life.
Moreover, "Powder Miscellaneous No. 1" is very tasty!
The chubby "Pink No. 1" smells of apples, so now the market also calls it "apple powder banana". Apple flour banana has a high soluble sugar content, sweet taste and firm flesh. It seems that although nature has set many difficulties for bananas to survive, bananas have also been cultivated by scientists more and more excellent!
The emergence of PowderZa No. 1 has effectively alleviated the threat of blight No. 4 to the banana industry, played an important role in the structural adjustment and optimization of the banana industry and the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, and ensured the sustainable development of the banana industry.
Editor: Li Baihe| Editor-in-Chief: Shang Qinru | Supervisor: Ren Min