First they’re telling me avocados might die, now bananas?
You know, fungus is great when it’s adjacent to the produce aisle in Wegmans.
I’m obsessed with the shitake, mitake, GeorgeTakei and all the other edible mushrooms my stomach hasn’t met yet. But the kinda fungus that destroys stuff like bananas before it can come sit in the produce aisle? That really cramps my style. And it’ll be putting a cramp in the cramp-mitigating fruit’s style soon too, most likely.
This douchebag of the mold world, Fusarium oxysporum, has already attacked crops in the middle east, Africa, and Asia. If it hits Latin America, then the Cavendish nanner’s gonna be in a world of hurt – because that’s where 70 percent of the banana industry is grown.
The way the fungus functions is through the soil. Much like the fat lady who was blocking me from the portabello section the other day and refused to move, this saprophytic asshole gets into the dirt and blocks nutrient uptake. Then it makes spores (okay, the fat lady didn’t do all that – I hope) and then passes its banana cancer along the winds. Or your shoes. It spreads super easily – so once it latches onto your boots, it can head anywhere in the world and do its worst on the crops. Plus, it’s chemical resistant. #doublebummer
But, ya know, all may not be lost. First, farmers can practice good “farm hygiene” and quarantine their ish. Also, when we look at history, it’s probably not gonna be so bad. I mean, for 15,000 years we’ve cultivated bananas and this wouldn’t be the first hit the phallic fruit’s taken. Apparently, there used to be a different, tastier strain before the Cavendish called the Gros Michel. But it too got nature raped and the current replacement was only implemented as some “lesser” thing we settled for. Also, the Cavendish is a congenital candy-ass, genetically speaking. It doesn’t handle adversity too well.
So, if Latin ‘murica gets hit, no more Cav banana as we know it. But maybe that’s a good thing. There’s like 1,200 types of banana that aren’t so easily butthurt by immigrant organisms. If growers opt to diversify, they could protect profit and the foreign fruit just might make beautiful music together…
…the way it often does when we combine delish albeit dissimilar stuff.
