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Are All Bananas Gmo
All the bananas are not Gmo. There are a variety of bananas such as wild bananas, organic bananas, and then come Gmo bananas. Gmo bananas are those which are genetically modified in a lab to enhance their certain characteristics. These bananas are hard and have tough seeds.
Genetically modified banana trees are given resistance genes either from wild relatives or nematodes. In 2012, researchers planted their transgenic bananas, alongside non-modified controls, on a farm some 40 kilometers southeast of Darwin, Australia, the site where the Panama disease arrived two decades earlier. A field trial in Australia Australia showed that transgenic banana trees could withstand the deadly fungus that causes Panama disease, which has devastated banana crops across Asia, Africa, and Australia, and is the top threat to banana farmers across Asia.
For decades, plant breeders have been trying to develop a banana that pleases consumers while also being resistant to the fruit is deadly disease. Good news came in late February, when Australian researchers announced a new banana genetically modified to be TR4 resistant. The team managed to put a gene that made one of the wild banana varieties resistant in commercial bananas, and researchers are now hoping to keep increasing immunity in this new banana using CRISPR.
A team in Australia has already placed the wild banana gene into a leading commercial variety – known as the Cavendish – and is now testing those modified bananas in field trials. James Dales team has focused on altering the Cavendish plants by insertion of the wild banana gene, Musa acuminate malaccensis, which confers TR4 resistance. The wild banana, Musa acuminate malaccensis. In a bid to make biotech bananas more palatable to regulators, James Dale is also editing the Cavendishs genome using CRISPR to increase its resistance to a banana-killing fungus, rather than inserting a foreign gene. Researchers are also turning to CRISPR, the powerful, precision gene-editing tool, to improve Cavendishs resistance against the fungus, known as tropical wilt race 4 (TR4).
| Facts | |
| Meaning | Genetically modified banana trees are given resistance genes either from wild relatives or nematodes. |
| History | For decades, plant breeders have been trying to develop a disease resistant banana that pleases consumers |
| Role of Australia | A team in Australia has already placed the wild banana gene into a leading commercial variety – known as the Cavendish |
Now, the banana-killing fungus is thriving across America, and researchers say that the Cavendish may be effectively extinct over the next few decades if they cannot alter it to withstand the fungus. Rodomiro Ortiz, a plant geneticist at Swedens Alnarp University of Agricultural Science, says no banana species naturally occurring has both the qualities that made the Cavendish so popular, and the ability to withstand a banana-killing fungus. Breeding resistance to TR4 into Cavendish using traditional methods is impossible, since the strain is sterile and propagated via clones. Small-scale farmers typically cultivate a number of resistant banana varieties for local consumption, which may tolerate or resist the cavendishs very nemesis.
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The disease-resistant varieties from Cavendish may have lower quality and can take longer to mature, Our banana industry is still growing, says Molina. The bananas that we usually come across are mainly of Cavendish varieties. Virtually all the bananas sold throughout the Western world are from what is called the Cavendish subgroup of the species, and are almost identical in their genetics. It is, with rare exceptions, the only variety of banana that you will find in stores outside of regions that produce bananas.
Well, if you have ever encountered a banana tree growing in the wild, chances are those bananas probably have seeds. Domesticated bananas long ago lost the seeds that allowed their wild ancestors to breed — if you eat a banana today, you are eating a clone. Because Cavendish bananas are seedless (wild bananas are chock-full of seeds, but are disliked by many consumers) and so are grown from suckers, nearly identical plants are all the more susceptible to spreading diseases. Plant scientists, including ourselves, are working out the genetics of the wild banana varieties and the pathogens in the bananas, just as plant scientists are trying to keep a Cavendish banana from going down.
The availability of recent tools and detailed genome sequences, combined with the visionary, long-term studies of genetics, engineering, and plant breeding, may help us stay ahead of pathogens currently threatening Cavendish bananas. In the future, the combination of functional genomics and genetic transformation techniques could result in improved banana varieties with both superior disease resistance and higher yields. These earlier studies indicate that banana plants with enhanced architecture could be developed using genetic strategies. Once molecular mechanisms are better understood, genetic engineering techniques, such as precision genome editing, could effectively be used to develop genetically engineered elite banana varieties that have enhanced disease resistance, desirable architecture, and increased yield.
Genetic engineering is beneficial to the development of banana varieties with fungi-resistant traits and ideal plant architecture because most varieties are infertile. In addition to previously described genes from rice and wheat conferring both higher yields and better immunity, and which could be expressed in bananas using genetic engineering techniques, we should also try to identify banana-native genes associated with both superior immunity and higher yields. Last, disease resistance may be introduced to commercial bananas through grafting methods, but it is not susceptible to genetic engineering techniques, including CRISPR gene editing, that can only manipulate one or few genes.
Genetically modified bananas may become resistant to the disease known as fusarium wilt, which has been attacking plantations around the world. Researchers from the Norwich-based start-up Tropic Biosciences are using gene-editing techniques to develop a new, more resilient version of the fruit, having secured PS7.5m in funding from investors. At the end of last week, the Telegraph reported, in headline This is how scientists are saving the worlds banana crops, that experts from Cambridge University had shown different banana varieties could be grafted together to add disease-resistance and other traits that would make bananas healthier, with no genetic editing needed.
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Plant breeders are testing wild bananas and trying to crossbreed the non-edible wild species with the seedless domesticated edible varieties in an effort to transfer the immune traits. To double-check that GM banana trees were exposed to the same Cavendish-owned nemesis, researchers buried infectious materials next to each plant.
The Gros Michel bananas were swiftly replaced in the field by the Cavendish, which was impervious to TR4s precursor. Cavendish bananas are resistant to the one that destroys soilborne pathogens, the Race 1 strain, and thus were able to displace Gros Michel when it succumbed to disease. Cavendish is a major commercial banana variety around the world, which has been genetically modified to increase nutritional content, as well as make it resistant to the deadly fungal – Fusarium wilt tropical race 4 (TR4), that is threatening its survival. Such varieties will help bananas to stay as staple foods around the world.
Are organic bananas still GMO?
When purchasing organic bananas, look for the USDA organic seal. Organic foods are GMO-free, but that does not imply that they are. A non-GMO product does not imply that sustainable farming methods are being used. On non-GMO bananas and other produce, some of the most doubtful chemical fertilizers are applied.
Are all bananas man-made?
Insofar as they were not created in a laboratory, bananas are not a product of man. However, in the sense that they were developed through selective breeding, bananas are man-made. The Musa acuminata and the Musa balbisiana, two types of bananas that can be found in the wild, are still regarded to be the parents of modern bananas.
Do real bananas still exist?
Over 1000 distinct banana species, broken down into 50 categories, are grown worldwide. Some are sweet, such as the most popular and commonly exported Cavendish cultivar. It was first cultivated in 1830 at Chatsworth House in the UK and is called Musa Cavendish.