The American Phytopathological Society is a society.
All of the banana fruit rot at the same time and are inedible. Credit: Jane Ray.
The world's most consumed fruit and an important staple for many developing companies, bananas are increasingly threated by Blood disease, so named because cut banana stems look like they are bleeding. Blood disease can cause fruit rot and leaf die off. There is no cure for the disease.
The banana plantations in Kayuadi Island in South Sulawesi, Indonesia were so devastated by Banana Blood disease that they were abandoned. The disease was contained in this area for 60 years due to restrictions on the movement of banana plant materials.
Blood disease was found in West Java in 1987 and it spread quickly across the Indonesian archipelago. Many farmers were forced to stop production because of the disease. It is highly likely that the disease will spread to other Asian countries after it made it to peninsular Malaysia.
Jane Ray is studying the biology and epidemiology of Blood disease and she said that the losses are likely to be devastating without intervention. I am determined to understand this disease and use this information to develop improved diseases management options, helping to reduce crop loss and mitigate the risk of spread to new areas, improving food security in the tropics.
Ray and his colleagues carefully reviewed multi-lingual literature to gather historical knowledge of the disease. They conducted extensive surveys across the islands of Indonesia to determine the current geographic dispersal and pattern of spread of Blood disease.
Their study confirmed Blood disease in 18 different varieties of banana, including Cavendish, the world's most popular variety of banana. The study found that varieties previously reported as unaffected by the disease are now included in infections.
Ray said that the rapid expansion of blood disease is an emerging threat to banana production in Southeast Asia. If disease problems start small and can be contained if acted on early, they can become major constraints to production over large geographic areas.
Jane D. Ray and her co-authors wrote about the expansion of Banana Blood Disease in Southeast Asia. There is a book titled "PDIS-01-21-0149-RE."
The American Phytopathological Society provided this.
The news of the impending spread of banana blood disease in Southeast Asia was retrieved on December 17th, 2021.
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