In the middle of the twentieth century, there was a type of banana that was the most common in the world. Almost all commercial
bananas sold globally were clones of this particular variant of banana. However, in one part of the world, this banana
variety succumbed to a disease. The disease spread across the Earth, destroying banana plants, banana
plantations, and banana companies. As many of the bananas on the plantations were all clones of ones which had been destroyed by the disease, the vast majority of commercially sold bananas were susceptible to this disease. Finally, this type of banana was replaced by the current variety, called the Cavendish. Yet the Cavendish was distributed to banana plantations in much the same way as the fruit’s predecessor; cuttings were taken from a plant and then grown to full-fledged plants from which cutting were taken and the process repeated—with bananas being harvested along the way. Hence, the Cavendish was being cloned, just as its predecessor was.Now, a disease has started to infect some bananas of the Cavendish strain. As the Cavendish bananas are largely clones of each other, the plants will be generally susceptible to the same diseases, including this disease. The Cavendish banana could be pushed to the verge of extinction. As bananas are source of nutrients and sustenance for a large segment of the global population, the Cavendish banana’s destruction could affect the world’s population.Scientists are attempting to produce a hybrid of the Cavendish with a variety of banana that has resistance to the disease and can pass this resistance to the Cavendish. However, the Cavendish is reproduced by way of cuttings rather than sexually, and so making a hybrid could be difficult for the scientists. Furthermore, many varieties of banana are considered to be being destroyed, largely by logging in South Asia, the location of many of the wild bananas. Such logging could compound the difficulty in producing a resistant hybrid for commercial bananas.