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Xipe Totec

(44,319 posts)
1. Not all bananas are sterile, but commercially grown bananas are.
Fri Nov 6, 2015, 05:08 PM
Nov 2015

There'a desperate race at the moment to find a genetically modified variety that is resistant to various wilts.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-04/banana-killer-on-the-march-fuels-risk-of-fruit-s-next-extinction

While there are more than 1,000 types of bananas, many are consumed where they are grown or are inedible. To make money on exports, growers had to rely on a single variety to ensure uniformity and keep production costs low. Until the 1960s, that was the Gros Michel, which all but disappeared after a decades-long spread of what came to be known as Panama disease.



Not all bananas are seedless, though. Some bananas contain dozens of pea-sized seeds. And those seeds may hold a key to protecting bananas from the diseases that threaten them.

https://student.societyforscience.org/article/saving-banana

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