Environmental News

If PriusChat has heroes, I nominate @eaglesight333 for consistently providing weekly media summaries of environmental stories. Something like 500 views per week for a very long time.

 

A story of bananas

Peel and eat, but notice while eating the absence of seeds. For the botanically oriented this is actually weird because what are fruits for?

Bananas and plantains previously produced seedy fruits, but humans long ago found a way around that. Since then, after plants produce fruit, their tops are removed, roots are divided, and put into new holes. Then we have new bananas that are clones (genetically identical) to mother plants. There are no separate father plants.

There are hundreds of distinct varieties of bananas, but genetically speaking they do not interact. It's all just clone cars driving into the future. The previously commercial banana (Gros Michael) clone got wiped out by a fungus. The presently commercial banana (Cavendish) clone is susceptible to a different fungus.

All the other varieties of bananas are doing well (AFAIK), have very distinct flavors, but are not suitable for international shipping. A cure appears to be at hand:

Hope for global banana farming in genetic discovery | EurekAlert!

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Male and female flowers on same plants are called monoecious. Which spell checks as 'monotonous' and I guess that fits. So bananas still have sex (flowers, nectar, pollen, pollenators) but stop short of the 1-yard line and do not develop seeds. It is this sexuality that allows researchers to attempt to insert fungal resistance into Cavendish.

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Cavendish clone being so widely and densely planted offers itself up to any pathogen that achieves access. That;s a real problem. After this round gets fixed, there will be others.

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Intrepid biologists hiking through pristine appearing tropical forests may wonder if the land had actually been used by humans before. They may wonder a lot of things, including "where are the bad snakes and ants?" Tree species may appear to represent untouched forests, but seeing a banana is a clear indicator of earlier human activity.

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That was more than one banana story Good that I stopped.