Cavendish Bananas and Resiliency

By focusing on a single target of creating the perfect banana, have we lost the resiliency of the species?

Cavendish bananas are the most common banana found in the US, Canada and Western Europe markets. The Cavendish replaced the Gros Michel banana beginning in the 1950s, when it became susceptible to Panama disease-- a fungus that attacks the roots of the banana tree. By 1960 the Gros Michel was pretty much extinct.

The Honduran Foundation for Agricultural Investigation is the chief banana breeder and the Cavendish is the go to banana for uniformity in taste, texture and size.

In 2008, reports from Sumatra and Malaysia suggested that Cavendish bananas may also be susceptible to Panama disease. A more virulent strain of the disease seemingly has now evolved. All of the Cavendish plants are clones and therefore genetically identical and cannot evolve disease resistance. There are currently no effective pesticides against Panama disease. See this article in Popular Science for additional information.

There are two proposed paths to solve the potential problem. On one side are scientists who are trying to use traditional breeding techniques to create a replacement plant that looks and tastes just like the Cavendish. On the other side are bioengineers who are manipulating the plant's chromosomes to create a disease resistant Cavendish.