Since November 21, 2017 Einar Martinez, Instituto de Investigaciones en Sanidad Vegetal (INISAV), Cuba, started his PhD project on Panama disease in banana.
In Cuba, more than 179.000 ha of dessert bananas and plantain bananas are grown, which are primarily used as staple food. His research will focus on the diversity of Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense. in Cuba. Furthermore, he will evaluate resistance in Cuban banana germplasm, unravel the race concept in Foc and study the role of the microbiome for disease control. Einar’s project in funded by NUFFIC, the Dutch organisation for internationalisation in education.
In September 2017 the inauguration of Professor Gert Kema as professor by special appointment for Tropical Phytopathology at Wageningen University & Research took place. During his inauguration Kema revealed what it will take to save the banana.
The banana has been severely affected by fungal diseases that can only be combated by using more and more (chemical) plant protection products. In the last century, the much-loved Gros Michel banana variety was wiped out as a result of Panama disease. But now the replacement variety Cavendish – available in every supermarket – is at risk. At his inauguration as professor by special appointment for Tropical Phytopathology at Wageningen University & Research on 21 September 2017, Professor Gert Kema revealed what it will take to save the banana.
The first meeting is a satellite meeting on Saturday July 28 titled “Fusarium wilt disease of banana: recurrence of a global menace”.
See the program (click here) .
On Monday July 30 a workshop will be held titled “The Vulnerability of Banana to Globally Developing Disease Threats”.
The program (click here) has been drafted and will be finalized soon.
The editorial team is headed by Prof. Gert Kema and includes Prof. André Drenth, University of Queensland, Dr. Miguel Dita, Embrapa, Brazil, and the Wageningen University and Research colleagues Drs. Jetse Stoorvogel, Sietze Vellema and Kees Jansen, who are all involved in the INREF program.
The Research Topic will comprise a series of papers on the latest progress in Panama disease research which eventually will be available as an eBook. The inaugural article in the Research Topic is titled “New Geographical Insights of the Latest Expansion of Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense Tropical Race 4 Into the Greater Mekong Subregion”, Front. Plant Sci., 09 April 2018 (Subscription or payment may be required), and reveals links between the occurrence of TR4 in China and surrounding countries as well as between Pakistan and the Philippines and Jordan and Lebanon. Hence, genomics research enables forensic analyses on the origin of TR4 incursions.
Kema and co-workers recently published an article in the prestigious Nature Genetics journal on the sex life of Zymoseptoria tritici, the causal agent of septoria tritici blotch in wheat, the most important wheat disease in Europe and North Africa (Nature Genetics 50, 375–380, doi:10.1038/s41588-018-0052-9). They showed that avirulent isolates of the fungus do not disappear from the natural populations, but actively engage in sexual reproduction, thereby retaining their genes in the population. This results in a slow decline of resistance in wheat crops and also explains why resistance to strobilurin fungicides boomed in natural populations. The fungus is a close relative of Pseudocercosporafijiensis, the causal agent of black Sigatoka in banana. Both belong to the Dothideomycetes and therefore, the newly discovered aspects on the reproductive biology of this fungus may well apply to many more fungi, including P. fijiensis.This is important in any future breeding strategy for bananas.
On January 24, National Geographic visited WUR and filmed during a course that Prof. Kema is teaching on Frontiers in Medical and Veterinary Biology. They were particularly interested in banana research and visited the Unifarm Greenhouse facility to film ongoing trials and experiments of students. The footage will be part of flagship National Geographic Explorer program and results from the NG Magazine article on Future Farming in The Netherlands. The NG Explorer program will be broadcasted in the autumn of 2018 and reaches approximately 400 million people in 171 countries in 45languages.
An international team of scientists led by Wageningen University & Research has discovered a new genetic mechanism that makes the notorious Black Sigatoka fungus less sensitive to the main chemical crop protection products used against the disease. The discovery shines light on this increasingly reduced sensitivity and underlines the importance of developing banana varieties resistant to the fungus which causes Black Sigatoka.
Sigrid Kaag, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, has visited Unifarm at Wageningen University & Research (WUR). She was received by Louise O. Fresco, chairman of WUR and professor Gert Kema.
The minister was shown around in the greenhouses of the Unifarm Greenhouse facility. Professor Kema informed her about the panama disease in bananas. Furthermore, three PhD students explained their specific research in this area, for example ways in which the fungus that causes the Panama disease can be tackled.
November 2017 Gert Kema and Fernando Garcia Bastidas gave a presentation at the III Colombian Banana forum 2017. About Sustainable Production: Challenges and Opportunities of the Colombian banana sector. The meeting was organised by the ASBAMA: Asociacion de Bananeros del Magdalena y la Guajira.
Meeting
Gert and Fernando were invited to the meeting to explain about their research in the region. The research of Wageningen University & Research and local partners aims to support the region to grow bananas sustainably in a challenging context. Gert and Fernando are also part of the panel that is known as: The future of bananas: risks and threats of destructive and lethal diseases.
The big news of the first transgenic Cavendish banana resistant to TR4 has reached the press. In the Netherlands one of the main national news channels (NOS) made an item for their website. Fernando Garcia Bastidas, one of the banana researchers at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, explains about the breakthrough in this excellent video made by NOS. Most of the item is in the English language, so we think it is well worth watching. https://nos.nl/op3/artikel/2204634-waarom-je-straks-misschien-geen-banaan-meer-kan-eten.html
Some of the other digital media covering the news:
Recent Comments