Name: Tim V.
Status: student
Age: 20s
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: 7/24/2003
Question:
I have heard rumors/stories about the extinction of the edible banana and I was
wondering if this was true. If the reports about the extinction of bananas is true, is there
any way for you to provide me a source for backing this information up with scientific documents?
Replies:
I have also read about this. It turns out that the variety of banana that most of us eat in this
country is cloned. They are basically genetically identical to each other. Unfortunately, there
have been some blights that have affected the crop recently, and with no genetic diversity in the
population, what affects one, affects them all. The article I read was advising banana lovers to
try other types of bananas. I would be very sad if this happened as I am a banana lover. But
this is a good lesson in the importance of maintaining diversity in a population.
Van Hoeck
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