https://www.wired.com/2017/03/human...id=synd_digg&utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email The risk to our crops comes in direct proportion to the ways in which we have simplified agriculture. Nearly every crop in the world has undergone a very similar history—domesticated in one region, then moved to another region, where it could escape its pests and pathogens. But these pests and pathogens, in our global world of airplane flights and boat trips, are catching up. Once they do catch up, there are only very few ways to save our crops, and all of them depend on biodiversity, whether in the wild or among traditional crop varieties. This was true with the banana. Saving banana production around the world depended on finding the Cavendish banana, which relied on the work of the farmers that produced and grew it in the first place. Saving the banana when the Cavendish collapses will depend on our finding yet another variety and having similar luck. Alternatively, someone might be able to breed a new, resistant banana using some mix of new technologies and ancient varieties. But if they are going to do so, it will need to be soon.
I think I read someplace that somebody is finding some resistant clones. Traditional cross breeding isn't going to work, since every kind of banana we eat is sterile. Apparently if bananas weren't seedless, we wouldn't like them very much (those little black things are aborted seeds). Nobody ever seems to mention the other kinds of bananas besides Cavendish that I see in the grocery.