The most popular fruit in the world, but they could soon be killed off by a deadly fungus. In the last few years, a banana-killing disease has spread from Southeast Asia to the Middle East, Africa and Australia.

According to a new study, published in PLOS Pathogens, the perpetrator is called Tropical Race 4 (TR4), which originated in Indonesia in the 1960s and has now spread so widely that it’s threatening the world banana production.

In the study, they call for major investment into the breeding of new varieties of bananas and analysis of contaminated soils.

This is not the first time bananas are on the verge of extinction. In the 1950s, almost all Gros Michel bananas (the main type of banana farmed at the time) were wiped out by the Panama disease, caused by the fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum. A new species of banana, resistant to the fungus, was introduced in the affected areas, known as the Cavendish.

bbabo.Net