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The Cavendish banana is facing extinction
- Brockenstein 8y agoThe banana dying is my favorite trope. It's true, but it's been dying for a long time and we've known it's been in trouble for a long time. What with all plants being clones, no genetic diversity and having to jump from one variety to the next every time a disease or fungus gets the current variety's number. Cavendish, like Gros Michel before it is definitely doomed. Maybe we can mix and match for a few more generations. Maybe GMO bananas will be the only answer. In which case anti-GMO people will have to decide which they like more, bananas or fear mongering. Or maybe if we're doing gene editing, we can bring the Gros Michel back, you know, since Cavendish was thought of as a second rate banana.
- sundaeofshock 8y agoThe Bug Mike never went extinct. They are still around but are not as easy to ship as the Cavendish. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/gros-michel-bananas https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/gros-michel-bananas
- nixpulvis 8y agoMGMGA?
- acheron 8y agoMaybe GMO bananas will be the only answer. In which case anti-GMO people will have to decide which they like more, bananas or fear mongering. The anti-science activists are also working to kill off the orange as well. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140914-florida-orange-citrus-greening-gmo-environment-science/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140914-flor...
- petard 8y agoEvery now and then a article pops-up claiming bananas are dead, a break-through in battery capacity or some new revolutionary storage technology.
- bioinformatics 8y agoDon’t forget some miracle cure of cancer, peak oil and blood diamonds.
- asaph 8y agoWhy do bad things happen to good fruit? I wish something would wipe out the red delicious apple.
- nkrisc 8y agoI think all red apples are kind of bland. Green apples are where it's at.
- Grazester 8y agoSeems like we share the same sentiment where the red delicious is concerned.
- nickspacek 8y agoI remember this being a good apple in the past. Is it possible that modern practices of breeding and packing for shipping fitness have caused a decline in the quality?
- asaph 8y agoYour memory deceives you. They look good but they've always been inferior in taste and texture. Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/the-evil-reign-of-the-red-delicious/379892/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/the-evil-...
- 8y ago
- craftyguy 8y agoThe western 'standard' banana is 'dying' but there are many great varieties that seem to be doing well in SE Asia (for example)
- jimijazz 8y agoIt makes sense to me, that a static species can not survive a changing environment. I believe we need to learn not to depend on monocultures and foster local production/consumption of food.
- j0hnM1st 8y agoMisleading title! Looks like a push to spread GM foods as opposed to any relevant issue. As someone who cultivates banana for real, TR4 is not an issue in Asian countries like the article says.
- aetherson 8y agoI first saw all these same claims 15 years ago.
- b_tterc_p 8y agoPotentially dumb question: are plantains ok?
- Nursie 8y ago"The banana" It annoys me, probably more than is rational, when I see that. There are lots of types of banana, it's just that we in the west usually only get 1 or 2, because that's what gets cultivated in huge quantities, and is easiest to ship. On my travels, and sometimes just from a more internationally focused store than a typical supermarket, I've had apple bananas, lady fingers, Fe'i and various types of plantain. I'd love to try ice-cream bananas, red daccas and all the rest. But what we get is just more Cavendish... and these meme-like articles that crop up several times a year.
- dreen 8y agoDamn... give me the GMO bananas please and I'll eat NOTHING ELSE for a month just to prove a point.
- deadmetheny 8y agoThis is clickbait. Bananas as a species are doing just fine, it's the Cavendish cultivar that is in danger due to being a monoculture, just like the Gros Michel was when most of its groves got wiped out. Some other SE Asian banana will just end up taking its place if and when the Cavendish gets taken out as a result of monoculture, and quite frankly many of those varieties are vastly superior to the Cavendish anyway.
- gutnor 8y agoAlso clickbait, the demise of the Cavendish is a yearly article with basically the same content published every years. This one seems to be prompted by the recent rejection of a GMO solution. This is the banana equivalent of publishing "The Car is dying, the race to save personal transportation is on" as a result of VW emission scandal.
- xapata 8y agoIf they're superior, why haven't they already replaced the Cavendish?
- SpikeDad 8y agoDepends who is interested. For consumers who like tasty bananas there are plenty that are superior. For growers and distributers who only care about whether a variety grows cheaply and ships in good condition then they're gonna be upset.
- kirkules 8y agoWhy isn't anyone but Donald Trump the President of the United States?
- xapata 8y agoRepeated sampling of US presidents has rarely resulted in Donald Trump. We've had 44 others. On the other hand, looking over the history of elected leaders around the world, demagogues like Trump are not infrequent. Contrasting with the Cavendish banana, what proportion of bananas sold are Cavendish? The vast majority, I've been told.
- remind_me_again 8y ago"...regularly received mysterious packages containing pathogens pulled out of the soil from far-flung plantations". So he gets boxes out of the blue? Really?
- 394549 8y agoAre there still any places you can get Gros Michel bananas? I've heard they still survive in a few places, and I've always wanted to try one.
- tlholaday 8y agoFrom the linked article: “Having given up on finding the Gros Michel in the wild, I’ve ordered it in from the Miami Fruit Company in South Florida, a tropical fruit grower with so many different bananas they’ll ship you an entire sampler of different varieties.”
- dang 8y agoThere have been surprisingly many banana extinction stories on HN, though you have to pick them out from the other banana stories: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=banana%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=banana%20points%3E10&sort=byDa...
- mbfg 8y agoThe cavendish isn't really that good of a banana, among all the banana species, so no one should shed a tear if it's supplanted with a different species. Blue Java Bananas are yummy. (altho probably not destined to be the replacement).