Abstract
Banana is the most popular and most exported fruit and also a major food crop for millions of people around the world. Despite its importance and the presence of serious disease threats, research into this crop is limited. One of those is Panama disease or Fusarium wilt. In the previous century Fusarium wilt wiped out the “Gros Michel” based banana industry in Central America. The epidemic was eventually quenched by planting “Cavendish” bananas. However, 50 years ago the disease recurred, but now on “Cavendish” bananas. Since then the disease has spread across South-East Asia, to the Middle-East and the Indian subcontinent and leaped into Africa. Here, we report the presence of Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense Tropical Race 4 (Foc TR4) in “Cavendish” plantations in Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam. A combination of classical morphology, DNA sequencing, and phenotyping assays revealed a very close relationship between the Foc TR4 strains in the entire Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), which is increasingly prone to intensive banana production. Analyses of single-nucleotide polymorphisms enabled us to initiate a phylogeography of Foc TR4 across three geographical areas—GMS, Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East revealing three distinct Foc TR4 sub-lineages. Collectively, our data place these new incursions in a broader agroecological context and underscore the need for awareness campaigns and the implementation of validated quarantine measures to prevent further international dissemination of Foc TR4.
Highlights
Panama disease or Fusarium wilt is caused by the soil-borne fungus Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (Foc), and was first described in Australia in 1874 (Bancroft, 1876)
Observation and Sampling of Fusarium Wilt in the Greater Mekong Subregion In Laos and Myanmar, the predominant banana variety encountered in the plantations was the “Cavendish” variety “Brazilian,” while in the northern part of Vietnam “Cavendish” selection “Guijiao No 6” was grown
This study provides the earliest collected records of Foc TR4 in Vietnam and Laos and its first report in Myanmar
Summary
Panama disease or Fusarium wilt is caused by the soil-borne fungus Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (Foc), and was first described in Australia in 1874 (Bancroft, 1876). The Fusarium wilt epidemic was caused by a set of Foc strains that are collectively called Race 1 and decimated the large-scale monocultures of “Gros Michel” on which the banana industry in America relied. No effective control methods were found other than replacing “Gros Michel” with resistant “Cavendish” bananas in Central America during the 1960s This replacement has been highly successful to quench the Fusarium wilt epidemic that was caused by Foc Race 1 strains. “Cavendish” production expanded into large global monocultures, which are prone to disease threats, including black Sigatoka and Panama disease (Ordoñez et al, 2015b; Arango Isaza et al, 2016; Diaz-Trujillo et al, 2018) This has not resulted in global research efforts to neutralize these problems. This urges for international, regional, and local measures aimed at prevention and management of this destructive disease (Ploetz, 2015)
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