Hungary: The bananas may disappear from the shelves permanently

Once upon a time, a popular breed, the star of global trade, gros michel, was completely extinct. He was taken away by the first Panama disease, the Index wrote. It was replaced by the Cavendish varieties known to us, which, though not as delicate, were resistant to destructive mold. The joy did not last long, a mutation (TR4 strain) emerged in the late 1980s that continues to spread unstoppably on every continent to this day. This is worrying not only because, like its predecessor, Cavendish varieties could disappear from shelves forever, but also because yellow fruit is the staple food of nearly 400 million people in hot zone countries. Photo: Shutterstock It was already the eyes of hunter-gatherer peoples, one of the oldest cultivated fruits in the world. It was already consumed in Southeast Asia ten thousand years ago. But not the original wild game (Musa acuminata), because it is inedible, full of hard seeds, but its seedless variants. Such are the Cavendish varieties, which ...