The Cavendish banana is under threat from a fungus

Re:The Cavendish banana is under threat from a fungus by HillaryBriss on Saturday October 07, 2017 @10:55PM (#15426773)

whether or not there's a subtheme that genetic engineering is required to save it, i've been hearing this story about the imminent decline of the Cavendish for about a decade.

maybe LA shoppers are just lucky, but i've seen plentiful alternative varieties in grocery stores here, including "Cuban/Jamaican Red", "Thai" (a little bit like Hawaii's "Ice Cream Banana"), and "Burro." they usually taste better than the Cavendish. and, on sale, you can get 3 pounds for a dollar.

i occasionally see fruit-bearing banana plants growing in Los Angeles itself. i've tried some of these and they also taste better than the Cavendish.

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Re:The Cavendish banana is under threat from a fungus by 8ytecoder on Sunday October 08, 2017 @12:06AM (#15426936)

I grew up eating at least 10 different varieties of bananas. US is a banana desert in comparison - no variety or choice. US multinational corporations via their Latin American banana farms control much of the trade.

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Re:The Cavendish banana is under threat from a fungus by stephenr on Saturday October 07, 2017 @11:26PM (#15426847)

I don’t know what a “Thai” banana in LA is like but a “thai” banana in Thailand is a horrible thing compared to a cavendish.

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Re:The Cavendish banana is under threat from a fungus by HillaryBriss on Sunday October 08, 2017 @12:15AM (#15426952)

if i'm not mistaken, the "Thai" bananas i saw in LA were grown in Guatemala.

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Re:The Cavendish banana is under threat from a fungus by stephenr on Sunday October 08, 2017 @02:34AM (#15427218)

I haven't looked (literally the only thing I use them for is making smoothies when our Cavendish plants aren't producing) but I believe the "Thai" ones (or similar) are available in other SE Asian countries too, so it's possible they're very similar/the same thing.

They look very similar (very much like 3rd from the left in https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Bananava...) when peeled (apart from size - they're generally 1/2 or 1/3 the length of an average Cavendish and a little fatter, relative to length) but they're much 'juicier' and probably a little sweeter too.

The taste itself isn't enough to put me off (see above about smoothies) but the texture is unbearable, it's like an over-ripe Cavendish.

Edit: for some growing-bananas-in-thailand trivia:

Here at least, the little horrible ones grow a lot faster and are much more durable than Cavendish. The tallest Cavendish plant we've had so far is maybe 2.5m tall - I can always grab the bunch when cutting them, and generally I can carry the bunch one handed.

The "Thai" ones are giant plants by comparison - usually 4-5M when they produce, and the biggest bunches I can't carry at all.

Then you have the giant Thai ones (the name translates as "Elephant banana") - the plant is as big as the regular Thai ones, but slower to produce fruit. The fruit itself are like a Cavendish on steroids - easily 2x the size, but horrible to eat, not even any good for smoothies. Even my in-laws don't know anyone who actually eats these ones.

Then there's the even tinier Thai ones (the name translates as "Egg banana") which have a quite short, but very leafy plant (maybe 2-2.5M tall at most) with lots of offshoots. The fruit itself are tiny - most plants here the bunch never drops down to 'hang' because it's not heavy enough, and the bananas are, as the name suggests, comparable in size to a large chicken or duck egg, and almost egg shaped too.

Thus concludes my tale.

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