How Science Can Save Bananas! Because Apparently They Are Under Threat

Amaze Lab

Bananas may be an American household staple, but in the 1950’s when the modern variety first came to grocery stores they were nearly wiped out. That’s because global populations were being infected by a pathogen known as Fusarium oxysporum race 1, the same infection that killed off previous varieties.

Transcript

00:00bananas may be an american household staple but in the 1950s before the modern variety

00:08first came to grocery stores they were nearly wiped out that's because global populations

00:13were being infected by a pathogen known as fusarium oxysporum race one that's why the

00:18modern cavendish banana was genetically engineered to be resistant to that fungal infection however

00:23new strains of the fungus are threatening your favorite yellow fruit once again biologists say

00:27that current banana varieties have sophisticated immune responses however fusarium has now

00:32developed what they call an accessory genome that genome allows the fungal infection to suppress the

00:37bananas immune response by releasing nitric oxide so does that mean bananas are about to go extinct

00:42the reason for the spread of this particular fungal infection is because global banana diversity has

00:47diminished most now deriving from a single clone variety so experts say that by diversifying the

00:52types of fruit species grown we can effectively make them more resistant experts also say we

00:57could treat the crops more scientifically introducing organisms that scavenge nitric oxide and inhibit

01:03the fungal infections arsenal

Category

Transcript

Recommended