Bananas could split for good

Having finally worked out that bananas are the cheapest fruit in Japan, it appears my new healthy eating plan may be in jeopardy...

Go bananas while you still can. The world's most popular fruit and the fourth most important food crop of any sort is in deep trouble. Edible bananas may disappear within a decade if urgent action is not taken to develop new varieties resistant to blight.

The main hope for survival of the Cavendish lies in developing new hybrids resistant to the fungus, but this is a difficult and time-consuming task because the seedless modern fruit does not reproduce sexually and has to be bred from cuttings.

New Scientist compared the current threat to bananas to the potato blight which caused the devastating Irish famine of the 1840s.

(taken from New Scientist and BBC News)