Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread

It is very true that we don’t know much at all about these civilizations. I just intend to speculate and present what has been brought forward by someone. We may never know how true it is or not, but that shouldn’t stop us from seeing what differnet people claim happened.

That is indeed a very nice way to look at the problem from both sides, Jeth. There is a lot to consider here and we know so very little.

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We don’t grow as many bananas as others would have you believe :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

(Though I do have banana plants in my backyard and that does not help my case)

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Is it the sweet bananas we have in our supermarkets or the big, exotic, green bananas for cooking, that we also have in our supermarkets? And what is your best banana recipe?

By the way, I don’t know if it has already been brought up here, but for a long time I have had a question for people that are much closer to the banana industry than I am (we will just say that my state isn’t exactly tropical) and see if first hand. It has been killing me for years, but my dad has claimed that there have been constant pollination issues and that we can really expect bananas to disappear almost entirely in upcoming decades (basically extinction). I know there have been disease issues, but is this really that much of a serious concern? I mean, bananas seem to be sold almost everywhere they can be (or maybe I just haven’t visited enough places and have no idea what I am talking about here). What are the thoughts of all of you on this?

I know it is a ridiculous question which I am somehow pretending to make serious.

Afaik, the problem with bananas is (the fruit bananas, not those for cooking, which are a different kind), that all the bananas are genetically identical. Yes, all of them. All over the world. So if there should come a disease or a pest that can effectively kill one banana tree, it will theoretically be able to kill all banana trees.

(And this, kids, is why genetical diversity is so important. :stuck_out_tongue: )

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Okay, it’s apparently a bit more complicated than that:

Cavendish bananas entered mass commercial production in 1903 but did not gain prominence until later when Panama disease attacked the dominant Gros Michel (“Big Mike”) variety in the 1950s. Because they were successfully grown in the same soils as previously affected Gros Michel plants, many assumed the Cavendish cultivars were more resistant to Panama disease. Contrary to this notion, in mid-2008, reports from Sumatra and Malaysia suggested that Panama disease had started attacking Cavendish cultivars.[8]

After years of attempting to keep it out of the Americas, in mid-2019, Panama disease Tropical Race 4 (TR4), was discovered on banana farms in the coastal Caribbean region. With no fungicide effective against TR4, the Cavendish may meet the same fate as the Gros Michel.[9]

So, it’s probably true that it would be a huge disaster for the farmers if this (or another) disease would spread on their plantations, and it would mean that there would be a shortage of bananas for a while (maybe even up to a few years?), but after some time, another banana cultivar would be used instead.

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I don’t like bananas, so fine by me. :woman_shrugging:

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I also don’t like them. :grin:

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Neither do I. I loved them until I was about 10, then changed my mind all of a sudden with the texture.

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But I do like banana ice cream, which is a mystery.
It might indeed be the texture.

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Anyone ever had a banana popsicle? I am telling you, that is an experience I will never forget. Or a pickle popsicle for that matter? It is probably just a weird American thing, among the other artificial junk that is literally killing us these days.

It’s not due to pollination issues, but rather a lack of genetic diversity from being unable to propagate via pollination, since the Cavendish bananas are sterile clones that do not produce viable seeds. They are nearly genetically identical since they are propagated by vegetative cloning, which makes them all particularly susceptible to the same diseases, as already noted by @KAOSkonfused.

Navel oranges are another example of a sterile fruit that is only propagated by vegetative cloning.

As also already noted by @KAOSkonfused and the above article, an earlier cultivar (Gros Michel) of banana was also “wiped out” by a widespread disease leading farmers to adopt the Cavendish as a disease resistant cultivar.

“Wiped out” does not mean immediate absolute extinction, but instead as the disease-causing fungus becomes more common in the soils across various growing regions, farmers won’t find it commercially viable to grow that cultivar and be forced to switch to something else.

It’s too bad that many of you don’t like bananas. Maybe you would have loved the earlier “Gros Michel” variety, which is said to be tastier. Perhaps, our grand children will despise the even worse taste of the next cultivar and never know the better taste of the Cavendish?

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There are two types of sweet banana, and one type of cooking banana. I have no recipes, just eat them raw or boiled respectively. My sister can do banana bread though :woman_shrugging:

However, what I do not have (though my mother has tried planting it a few times, but the silly plant just keeps dying for no reason) is the green cooking bananas that you refer to, better known as plantains; they can actually be cooked ripe as well and taste delicious.

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There are two types of sweet banana, and one type of cooking banana

There are a lot of them apparently. For those that wonder how a banana looked like before we turned them into storm troopers:

I think that even people that like bananas might not bite into that …

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The thing with bananas, as it has been brought up, is that they don’t yield fertile seeds (or any seeds at all). But you all already know that, if you’ve ever eaten one.

They do have flowers, though, and I can personally witness that a bunch of bees, wasps and probably other insects pollinize them. However, as @KAOSkonfused said, all Cavendish banana plants are clones, and their (sexual) reproductive systems aren’t quite functional. I don’t remember the source, but apparently you can get a fertile seed by artificially pollinizing thousands of banana flowers and probably praying to all the gods in the pantheon to get just one. It’s just not very feasible.

They reproduce by yielding several sprouts out of the same root of the mother tree (which dies after yielding the fruit). I believe that’s what they call a rhizome, but I could be wrong.

Unfortunately, the disease that is killing all cavendish plants has already got to Panama (it started in somewhere in South East Asia, if I remember correctly), so it’s only a matter of time before it ravages my country.


Anyway, as for what exactly are the cultivars in the back of my house, well I don’t know, I’m by no means an expert:

  1. One of them is a very short plant, barely taller than myself, with short fat fruit. By looking at pictures I suspect that one is Cavendish.

  2. The other sweet one comes from a very tall plant, and it is unusually sweet. I know those were originally planted by my grandfather a long time ago, so in my own head canon I’ll just claim that those are Gros Michel, just because no one can contradict me :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

  3. The third one is some variation of plantain. We call it ‘guineo’; I prefer that one over plantains anyway.

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That looks alright, I’d eat it, if it is not too bitter.

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In Thailand I tried some local types of bananas, most of them were very small. There was one kind in particular whose particularly sweet taste and gummy texture led me to night escapades to the village just to buy more. Much better than any banana I’d ever tried before.

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Have you seen this ridiculous creationist argument about how God intelligently designed bananas exactly as they are now (conveniently neglecting the millennia of human domestication)?

Another image of a wild variety of banana

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Well, they were intelligently designed… by humans. What I love is that the argument actually defeats the premise.

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Are you sure those were bananas??

:banana: :man_shrugging:t2: :pill:

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