Bananas: No Sex In Years, Extinction Imminent

zakur · 17th January 2003, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Bananas could split for good

Edible bananas may disappear within a decade if urgent action is not taken to develop new varieties resistant to blight.

A Belgian scientist leading research into the fruit loved by millions, and a staple for much of the world's poor, has warned that diseases and pests are steadily encroaching upon crops.

The problem is that the banana we eat is a seedless, sterile article which could slip the way of its predecessor which was wiped out by blight half a century ago.

CurtC · 17th January 2003, 12:12 PM

Wasn't one of Carl Sagan's items from his baloney detection kit the phrase "A Belgian scientist... has warned"?

17th January 2003, 09:30 PM

I thought the tougher part near the bottom of the banana was the seed?

hgc · 17th January 2003, 10:08 PM

I've heard this about chocolate too.

If you had to pick one, bananas or chocolate, to go extinct, which would it be?

Andonyx · 17th January 2003, 11:31 PM

Two years ago wans't there supposed to a shortage on the agave plant causing a rise in Tequila? I believe thhis was supposed to be due to a harsh climate as the result of El Nina.

I have never been so drunk as the day they announced that.

Of course, I recall no concurrent increase in the price of Tequila.

garys_2k · 18th January 2003, 06:32 AM

It sounds like our anti-GM people will again do all they can to prevent development of a disease-resistant strain of bananas, no matter how many people starve because of it. Better to apply the precautionary principle, they will say, than save lives.

Morons. Go back and wreck some automated looms.

Shane Costello · 18th January 2003, 07:17 AM

Originally posted by garys_2k:

Quote:

It sounds like our anti-GM people will again do all they can to prevent development of a disease-resistant strain of bananas, no matter how many people starve because of it. Better to apply the precautionary principle, they will say, than save lives.

Morons. Go back and wreck some automated looms.

I read a short newspaper column on this story to the effect that it was stoneage man that first identified the mutant edible strain of the banana and assiduosly farmed it. This is actual genetic modification as has been practised since man made the transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer i.e. the identification of favourable traits (in this case palatability) and the use of crossbreeding to increase the vigour of this trait or cloning to maintain the trait.

18th January 2003, 08:49 AM

You're talking about us, Gary? I'm all for genetic manipulation, personally, as long as there are proper controls, etc (growing the plants in enclosed greenhouses if cross-pollination is a concern, for example, though this doesn't apply to bananas). I was just questioning the veracity of this scientist's claims.

CurtC · 18th January 2003, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Shane Costello wrote:
This is actual genetic modification as has been practised since man made the transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer

It goes back much farther than that. Early man unintentionally domesticated many plants. An example is the almond - naturally, they are very bitter, but every once in a while a tree has a genetic mutation so that it can't make the bitter chemical. Early man found these trees by accident, harvested the nuts, some spilled around wherever he hung out, producing more non-bitter almond trees.

Same thing with peas. Even though they were still hunter-gatherers, man domesticated plants. I got these two examples from the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

magimix · 20th January 2003, 06:56 AM

There is a fairly big article about this in the current New Scientist. As I understand it (I do not have the article to hand), it's not so much that Bananas were domesticated, but that people found (in effect) mutant bananas that didn't develop seeds properly. These were taken, and cultivated with the use of cuttings and the like.

The spiky stump thing at the bottom of the banana (you know the bit I mean :-), and the blackish streaks in the flesh are the residual remains of were seeds would have been.

All major 'strains' of banana are cultivated rather than bread I think. And therein lies the problem. The pesticides we use on Bananas provide a stringent selective pressure on the things we are trying to get rid of, yet the banana does nto change, does not adapt. One new banana killing bacteria could wipe out the entirety of a particular strain with ease. I believe this happened in the 50's and researchers literally had to trawl the tropics looking for new strains of mutant bananas to cultivate.

Bananas form the staple diet of a large amount of the global population (let alone the financial reliance on the trade of bananas) - if they got wiped out it would not be nice.

mindless · 20th January 2003, 07:03 AM

I wont miss bananas, I seam to have some sort of mild alergic reaction to them.

Soapy Sam · 20th January 2003, 07:07 AM

Classic example of the primary advantage of sex;- genetic mixing.
Also the danger in monospecific agriculture of all sorts- selection can't work without variation., usually supplied by sexual crossing.

Major blow to some poor economies if the banana went extinct- and what would we do for banana splits?
Monsanto, get your act together! Save the banana and we might even buy your lousy GM corn.

sickstan · 21st January 2003, 07:24 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by rwald
I thought the tougher part near the bottom of the banana was the seed?

There are actually banana seeds, but they are the little brown dots near the point of the wedges when you cross-section your banana and split the three parts. Most of our banana crops are triploid or quadruploid (having 3 and 4 sets of chromosomes, respectively). That's why they're sterile. I'm sure, however, that among the suppliers of GM banana plants have a carefully catalogued stockpile of wild banana seeds. This is precisely what nutcase ELF bastards (I mean that non-perjoratively, of course) would terroristically attack with bombs and gasoline, thinking they'd done us all a great favor.

I think it was a U of Mich. botany facility that was recently attacked by ELF -- they destroyed 50 years of tree seed collection work, one of the most complete collections of natural tree seed in the world. It's great that they destroyed the pre-Dutch Elm heritage so they could enjoy their marijuana and eat their sprouts with a big wide smile on their faces 'cuz they did sumpin' awesom!

Akots · 21st January 2003, 10:10 AM

I'm allergic to the ghastly things.

And what's one of the the first things you feed a baby?

Mashed bananas. Lovely.

I'm not completely heartless... I am also horribly allergic to cats, but I utterly love them anyways. It's just bannanas that are vile.

21st January 2003, 12:28 PM

If they were quadraploid, why couldn't they reproduce sexually?

21st January 2003, 02:43 PM

Um, like, shouldn't we like be saving reproducible samples of these kinds of things, or something?

Then they can be reproduced and variously bred and manipulated in the laboratory before being released again.

However, of course it would suck for ahwhile until the banana trees could reach the age of maturity.

Again, it is obviously a good idea to, you know, not have all your eggs in one greenshouse, or something.

sickstan · 21st January 2003, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rwald
If they were quadraploid, why couldn't they reproduce sexually?

Dunno, anybody here know about plant ploidy and sexual reproduction?

21st January 2003, 04:29 PM

From what I know (which isn't very much), many plant species (such as wheat) doubled their chromosome number some time in their evolutionary past. It's a common way for a plant to become reproductively isolated from others of its former species. I mean, there's no logical reason why a 4n organism can't reproduce; you'll just have two tetrads instead of one. So, I'm reasonably certain that quadraploid plants can reproduce sexually.

However, it is important to note that triploid plants cannot reproduce sexually. That's the way that most seedless watermelons are made: they're created as a triploid organism, and then gametes can't form (the extra chromosome hanging around apparently messes up meiosis), and without those, the typical hard black seeds of the watermelon don't form (it seems that the gametes direct the formation of the seeds, or something). So, if bananas are in fact triploid, that would explain everything right there.

Mark · 22nd January 2003, 06:51 AM

Dunno, anybody here know about plant ploidy and sexual reproduction?

Bananas and sex. I wish Freud were here.

DaChew · 22nd January 2003, 09:06 AM

Quote:

Bananas: No Sex In Years, Extinction Imminent

They must have all got married.

Shane Costello · 22nd January 2003, 10:50 AM

Originally posted by sickstan:

Quote:

Dunno, anybody here know about plant ploidy and sexual reproduction?

Originally posted by rwald:

Quote:

From what I know (which isn't very much), many plant species (such as wheat) doubled their chromosome number some time in their evolutionary past.

IIRC from lectures at college wheat is the most notable example:
http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/m...er/number7.htm

The link points out that allopolyploidy was a vital development that allowed man to make the move from hunter gatherers to farmers, and that this is likely to have kickstarted civilization in the fertile crescent.

Wayne Grabert · 22nd January 2003, 01:11 PM

Shucks, I caught my sister Betty Lou havin' sex with a bananer jus' last week, so's she's doin' her part.

Hazelip · 26th September 2003, 03:49 AM

False.

http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/bananas.asp

CurtC · 26th September 2003, 06:23 AM

However, the legend deemed "false" by snopes is not exactly the same as the news report. it was obviously based on the news report though.

a_unique_person · 26th September 2003, 07:15 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Andonyx
Two years ago wans't there supposed to a shortage on the agave plant causing a rise in Tequila? I believe thhis was supposed to be due to a harsh climate as the result of El Nina.

I have never been so drunk as the day they announced that.

Of course, I recall no concurrent increase in the price of Tequila.

I have read from other sources that this is a problem with bananas.

Also, that there was a rise in the price of agave, but also that there was a massive planting operation to meet the anticipated demand, hence, the market, in this case, working.

davefoc · 26th September 2003, 10:18 AM

rwald said:

Quote:

There are actually banana seeds, but they are the little brown dots near the point of the wedges when you cross-section your banana and split the three parts. Most of our banana crops are triploid or quadruploid (having 3 and 4 sets of chromosomes, respectively).

Could somebody give a little explanation of all this ploidy business.

I was reading about conifers the other day and found out that redwoods are hexaploidy (6 sets). How does this happen? why aren't odd numbers of sets fertile? what exactly does this mean? Are all animals diploidy?

17th January 2003, 10:15 AM	#1
zakur Illuminator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Dayton, OH Posts: 3,265	Bananas: No Sex In Years, Extinction Imminent Quote: Bananas could split for good Edible bananas may disappear within a decade if urgent action is not taken to develop new varieties resistant to blight. A Belgian scientist leading research into the fruit loved by millions, and a staple for much of the world's poor, has warned that diseases and pests are steadily encroaching upon crops. The problem is that the banana we eat is a seedless, sterile article which could slip the way of its predecessor which was wiped out by blight half a century ago.
	__________________ "I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." -Thomas Carlyle "That's the problem these days: nobody thinks of the tumors." -steinhenge

17th January 2003, 09:30 PM	#3
rwald Guest Posts: n/a	I thought the tougher part near the bottom of the banana was the seed?
rwald Guest Posts: n/a

17th January 2003, 11:31 PM	#5
Andonyx Graduate Poster Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 1,834	Two years ago wans't there supposed to a shortage on the agave plant causing a rise in Tequila? I believe thhis was supposed to be due to a harsh climate as the result of El Nina. I have never been so drunk as the day they announced that. Of course, I recall no concurrent increase in the price of Tequila.
Andonyx Graduate Poster Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 1,834	__________________ Andonyx www.andonyx.com Shy Gypsy Slyly Shyly Tryst By My Crypt.

18th January 2003, 06:32 AM	#6
garys_2k Muse Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 756	It sounds like our anti-GM people will again do all they can to prevent development of a disease-resistant strain of bananas, no matter how many people starve because of it. Better to apply the precautionary principle, they will say, than save lives. Morons. Go back and wreck some automated looms.
garys_2k Muse Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 756	__________________ - Gary

18th January 2003, 08:49 AM	#8
rwald Guest Posts: n/a	You're talking about us, Gary? I'm all for genetic manipulation, personally, as long as there are proper controls, etc (growing the plants in enclosed greenhouses if cross-pollination is a concern, for example, though this doesn't apply to bananas). I was just questioning the veracity of this scientist's claims.
rwald Guest Posts: n/a

17th January 2003, 12:12 PM	#2
CurtC Illuminator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 4,758	Wasn't one of Carl Sagan's items from his baloney detection kit the phrase "A Belgian scientist... has warned"?

17th January 2003, 10:08 PM	#4
hgc Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 13,019	I've heard this about chocolate too. If you had to pick one, bananas or chocolate, to go extinct, which would it be?

18th January 2003, 07:17 AM	#7
Shane Costello Graduate Poster Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 1,235	Originally posted by garys_2k: Quote: It sounds like our anti-GM people will again do all they can to prevent development of a disease-resistant strain of bananas, no matter how many people starve because of it. Better to apply the precautionary principle, they will say, than save lives. Morons. Go back and wreck some automated looms. I read a short newspaper column on this story to the effect that it was stoneage man that first identified the mutant edible strain of the banana and assiduosly farmed it. This is actual genetic modification as has been practised since man made the transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer i.e. the identification of favourable traits (in this case palatability) and the use of crossbreeding to increase the vigour of this trait or cloning to maintain the trait.

18th January 2003, 07:56 PM	#9
CurtC Illuminator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 4,758	Quote: Shane Costello wrote: This is actual genetic modification as has been practised since man made the transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer It goes back much farther than that. Early man unintentionally domesticated many plants. An example is the almond - naturally, they are very bitter, but every once in a while a tree has a genetic mutation so that it can't make the bitter chemical. Early man found these trees by accident, harvested the nuts, some spilled around wherever he hung out, producing more non-bitter almond trees. Same thing with peas. Even though they were still hunter-gatherers, man domesticated plants. I got these two examples from the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

20th January 2003, 06:56 AM	#10
magimix New Blood Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 18	There is a fairly big article about this in the current New Scientist. As I understand it (I do not have the article to hand), it's not so much that Bananas were domesticated, but that people found (in effect) mutant bananas that didn't develop seeds properly. These were taken, and cultivated with the use of cuttings and the like. The spiky stump thing at the bottom of the banana (you know the bit I mean :-), and the blackish streaks in the flesh are the residual remains of were seeds would have been. All major 'strains' of banana are cultivated rather than bread I think. And therein lies the problem. The pesticides we use on Bananas provide a stringent selective pressure on the things we are trying to get rid of, yet the banana does nto change, does not adapt. One new banana killing bacteria could wipe out the entirety of a particular strain with ease. I believe this happened in the 50's and researchers literally had to trawl the tropics looking for new strains of mutant bananas to cultivate. Bananas form the staple diet of a large amount of the global population (let alone the financial reliance on the trade of bananas) - if they got wiped out it would not be nice.
magimix New Blood Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 18

20th January 2003, 07:03 AM	#11
mindless Scholar Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 114	I wont miss bananas, I seam to have some sort of mild alergic reaction to them.
mindless Scholar Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 114	__________________ Gir: I need tacos! I need them or I will explode... that happens some times. Belief is not proof, your God does not exist.

20th January 2003, 07:07 AM	#12
Soapy Sam NLH Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 25,885	Classic example of the primary advantage of sex;- genetic mixing. Also the danger in monospecific agriculture of all sorts- selection can't work without variation., usually supplied by sexual crossing. Major blow to some poor economies if the banana went extinct- and what would we do for banana splits? Monsanto, get your act together! Save the banana and we might even buy your lousy GM corn.
Soapy Sam NLH Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 25,885

21st January 2003, 07:24 AM	#13
sickstan Thinker Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Phoenix Posts: 179	Quote: Originally posted by rwald I thought the tougher part near the bottom of the banana was the seed? There are actually banana seeds, but they are the little brown dots near the point of the wedges when you cross-section your banana and split the three parts. Most of our banana crops are triploid or quadruploid (having 3 and 4 sets of chromosomes, respectively). That's why they're sterile. I'm sure, however, that among the suppliers of GM banana plants have a carefully catalogued stockpile of wild banana seeds. This is precisely what nutcase ELF bastards (I mean that non-perjoratively, of course) would terroristically attack with bombs and gasoline, thinking they'd done us all a great favor. I think it was a U of Mich. botany facility that was recently attacked by ELF -- they destroyed 50 years of tree seed collection work, one of the most complete collections of natural tree seed in the world. It's great that they destroyed the pre-Dutch Elm heritage so they could enjoy their marijuana and eat their sprouts with a big wide smile on their faces 'cuz they did sumpin' awesom!
	__________________ "I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein."—Washington, D.C., May 25, 2004

21st January 2003, 10:10 AM	#14
Akots Critical Thinker Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 494	I'm allergic to the ghastly things. And what's one of the the first things you feed a baby? Mashed bananas. Lovely. I'm not completely heartless... I am also horribly allergic to cats, but I utterly love them anyways. It's just bannanas that are vile.
Akots Critical Thinker Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 494	__________________ I can't drink POSSIBLE beers! I need ACTUAL beers! Damn you, quantum mechanics!

21st January 2003, 12:28 PM	#15
rwald Guest Posts: n/a	If they were quadraploid, why couldn't they reproduce sexually?
rwald Guest Posts: n/a

21st January 2003, 02:43 PM	#16
Plutarck Guest Posts: n/a	Um, like, shouldn't we like be saving reproducible samples of these kinds of things, or something? Then they can be reproduced and variously bred and manipulated in the laboratory before being released again. However, of course it would suck for ahwhile until the banana trees could reach the age of maturity. Again, it is obviously a good idea to, you know, not have all your eggs in one greenshouse, or something.
Plutarck Guest Posts: n/a

21st January 2003, 03:56 PM	#17
sickstan Thinker Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Phoenix Posts: 179	Quote: Originally posted by rwald If they were quadraploid, why couldn't they reproduce sexually? Dunno, anybody here know about plant ploidy and sexual reproduction?
	__________________ "I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein."—Washington, D.C., May 25, 2004

21st January 2003, 04:29 PM	#18
rwald Guest Posts: n/a	From what I know (which isn't very much), many plant species (such as wheat) doubled their chromosome number some time in their evolutionary past. It's a common way for a plant to become reproductively isolated from others of its former species. I mean, there's no logical reason why a 4n organism can't reproduce; you'll just have two tetrads instead of one. So, I'm reasonably certain that quadraploid plants can reproduce sexually. However, it is important to note that triploid plants cannot reproduce sexually. That's the way that most seedless watermelons are made: they're created as a triploid organism, and then gametes can't form (the extra chromosome hanging around apparently messes up meiosis), and without those, the typical hard black seeds of the watermelon don't form (it seems that the gametes direct the formation of the seeds, or something). So, if bananas are in fact triploid, that would explain everything right there.
rwald Guest Posts: n/a

22nd January 2003, 06:51 AM	#19
Mark Former Spinal Tap Drummer Join Date: Sep 2001 Posts: 5,529	Dunno, anybody here know about plant ploidy and sexual reproduction? Bananas and sex. I wish Freud were here.

22nd January 2003, 09:06 AM	#20
DaChew Graduate Poster Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 1,043	Quote: Bananas: No Sex In Years, Extinction Imminent They must have all got married.
DaChew Graduate Poster Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 1,043

22nd January 2003, 10:50 AM	#21
Shane Costello Graduate Poster Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 1,235	Originally posted by sickstan: Quote: Dunno, anybody here know about plant ploidy and sexual reproduction? Originally posted by rwald: Quote: From what I know (which isn't very much), many plant species (such as wheat) doubled their chromosome number some time in their evolutionary past. IIRC from lectures at college wheat is the most notable example: http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/m...er/number7.htm The link points out that allopolyploidy was a vital development that allowed man to make the move from hunter gatherers to farmers, and that this is likely to have kickstarted civilization in the fertile crescent.

22nd January 2003, 01:11 PM	#22
Wayne Grabert Muse Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 629	Shucks, I caught my sister Betty Lou havin' sex with a bananer jus' last week, so's she's doin' her part.
Wayne Grabert Muse Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 629

26th September 2003, 03:49 AM	#23
Hazelip Critical Thinker Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 497	False. http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/bananas.asp
Hazelip Critical Thinker Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 497	__________________ Boring blog: http://www.Hazelip.com/

26th September 2003, 06:23 AM	#24
CurtC Illuminator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 4,758	However, the legend deemed "false" by snopes is not exactly the same as the news report. it was obviously based on the news report though.

26th September 2003, 07:15 AM	#25
a_unique_person Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Mt Disappointment Posts: 33,329	Quote: Originally posted by Andonyx Two years ago wans't there supposed to a shortage on the agave plant causing a rise in Tequila? I believe thhis was supposed to be due to a harsh climate as the result of El Nina. I have never been so drunk as the day they announced that. Of course, I recall no concurrent increase in the price of Tequila. I have read from other sources that this is a problem with bananas. Also, that there was a rise in the price of agave, but also that there was a massive planting operation to meet the anticipated demand, hence, the market, in this case, working.
	__________________ *Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity.* Everything is possible, but not everything is probable. For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it. Hobbes

26th September 2003, 10:18 AM	#26
davefoc Philosopher Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: orange country, california Posts: 7,255	rwald said: Quote: There are actually banana seeds, but they are the little brown dots near the point of the wedges when you cross-section your banana and split the three parts. Most of our banana crops are triploid or quadruploid (having 3 and 4 sets of chromosomes, respectively). Could somebody give a little explanation of all this ploidy business. I was reading about conifers the other day and found out that redwoods are hexaploidy (6 sets). How does this happen? why aren't odd numbers of sets fertile? what exactly does this mean? Are all animals diploidy?
	__________________ The way of truth is along the path of intellectual sincerity. -- Henry S. Pritchett Perfection is the enemy of good enough -- Russian proverb