Bananas are a well-liked import fruit all over the world, and the Cavendish cultivar has been crushing that market for sixty years. But its rise is literally founded upon the compost heap of the Gros Michel, another cultivar. The so-called “Big Mike” variety had been the leading export towards Europe and North America, but the Panama disease, a fungus belonging to the Fusarium clade, killed that. Luckily the Cavendish, grown in the same soil as the wilting Gros Michel, replaced it as the banana most of the western world connected with bananas.

However, it appears another Fusarium rears its spores. Cavendish, with their genetic homogenity (they’re all clones) and sterile nature, aren’t resistant to it, and the fungus is ravaging more and more plantations.

There are efforts under way to deal with Fusarium, but with various societies’ doubts and misgivings about GMOs, the cure may be viewed as a curse instead.