IAEA, FAO help develop bananas resistant to major fungal disease

Bananas may be the world's favourite fruit, but plantations worldwide are increasingly under threat from a new fungus that destroys banana plants and endangers both the farmers' livelihoods and the industry. Confined to Southeast Asia for decades, Fusarium wilt tropical race 4 (TR4) was spotted for the first time in Africa and in Latin America in 2019. Its outbreak in Colombia in August 2019 led to the declaration of a national emergency. The IAEA — in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) — has worked with researchers worldwide to support the development of new varieties of banana species that could be resistant to the disease. "Modern bananas can't grow seeds and so are difficult to improve using cross breeding," said Ivan Ingelbrecht, Head of the FAO/IAEA Plant Breeding and Genetics Laboratory. Therefore, the use of techniques such as irradiation or chemical mutagenesis to produce new varieties with favourable traits is often a favoured option to combat the disease.