Banana diseases

Abstract

The development of the banana industry is intimately linked to the diseases that have afflicted and continue to afflict this major commodity in world trade. The replacement of Gros Michel by clones of a single variety, Cavendish, due to breakdown of resistance to race 1 of Panama disease has led to a situation where an extremely narrow genetic base, derived from selection not breeding, is now threatened by new pathogenic variants of this disease and others, such as black Sigatoka. If Cavendish should now fail the banana industry will be in dire straits. On a more local scale, similar situations have arisen with Bluggoe plantain and Moko disease in the Caribbean and Central America. The historical background to these developments is provided in several key books and publications, notably Wardlaw (1972), Stover (1972a), Simmonds (1966), Stover and Simmonds (1987) and Stover (1990). Recent monographs and reviews on individual major diseases have recently appeared (Ploetz, 1990; Fullerton and Stover, 1990): this chapter attempts to provide a full synthesis of all diseases, caused by bacteria, fungi and viruses that have been or potentially could be significant in banana production. In some cases, e.g. the range of bacterial diseases of Musa, new information and possibly unifying concepts are presented which are not available elsewhere.