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@SpaceElf @josh @dielan why apples and berries are more based
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@josh @dielan Banana's have been cultivated to be sterile, in order to avoid having seeds in the banana. To produce more banana crops, we need to remove a piece of the parent plant and replant it. This means that every generation of bananas is genetically identical to the parent.
With so little genetic diversity, a disease is capable of rapidly exterminating an entire variety with no opportunity to resist it.
Prior to 1950, the worlds sole favourite banana (and the one that exemplified the artificial banana flavour we use) was the Gros Michel. A fungal infection; Panama Disease, exterminated almost every single Gros Michel banana plant. The Cavendish was immune to the disease, and survived the fungal infection. Cavendish have long shelf lives, making them ideal for transport.
Panama disease has mutated over time, as diseases do, and a new strain is capable of infecting Cavendish bananas. Cavendish, like the Gros Michel are all cultivar clones, and as such they have no genetic diversity at all. It is very likely that all Cavendish plants will go extinct. There is no replacement for the Cavendish in terms of size and flavour that has a long shelf life. As such, any banana that replaces the Cavendish is going to be very different.
We will likely have to breed a new banana from a hybrid of a pre-existing cultivar and a wild species, and accept bananas that have seeds. Enjoy them while you have the ones you like.
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@dielan Not a funny reply, but they're trying to sell other varieties of bananas because right now there is a fungal infection obliterating the other kind you see everywhere.
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POV: the edible starts to hit in the grocery store & the battle music starts playing
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Josh
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