Maricar Salacinas, PhD student at Wageningen UR, works since two years on the understanding of the dissemination of Panama disease (or TR4) and the efficacy of current methodologies that are used to prevent further spreading of TR4 in the Philippines.
Salacinas: “In the last two years, my work concentrated on the analyses of numerous soil samples addressing the epidemiology of TR4 in Mindanao (Philippines). I collected soil samples from Lakatan banana fields (local banana cultivar), and from various locations in the lowlands and highlands after a range of management practices including isolation and rice-hull burning. Last months, I was at Wageningen UR to analyse the soil samples. Now I am back in the Philippines to further study the efficacy of sanitation, disinfection, and the potential of soil disinfestation. Furthermore to determine the viability of fungi spores at different soil depths.”
Later Salacinas will work in Wageningen on the validation of resistance to TR4 in a selected group of banana varieties. This will be conducted in close collaboration with Fernando Garcia, another PhD student in the INREF program.
Want to know more about the research activities of Salacinas? You can contact her via email.
On the photo: A with Panama disease infected area on a banana farm in Mindanao, Philippines.
In May, Gert Kema, group leader of the banana research group of Wageningen UR, visited China to discuss the current Panama disease situation and new ways to slow down and prevent further spreading among Chinese banana plantations. Together with Prof. André Drenth, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, who leads the Banana Plant Protection Program, he visited the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences as well as several companies, banana plantations and research institutes in both provinces.
Kema: “In both provinces we saw the widespread occurrence of Panama disease, likely caused by Tropical Race 4. Unfortunately, the awareness level among farmers is low, which results in a rapid dissemination of the disease. We discussed the urgency of a regional approach to raise awareness and implement quarantine strategies. The first steps for a joint program have been taken”.
In Australia, in March 2015, the first outbreaks of Panama disease in banana plantations were reported. Farmers, authorities and other organisations work together to limit the spreading of this devastating banana disease to other plantations in the country. Biosecurity Queensland launched a useful movie with advice about how to protect banana farms against Panama disease.
Following outbreaks in Jordan and Mozambique just over a year ago, the Tropical Race 4 strain (TR4) of Fusarium oxysporum – the cause of Panama disease in Cavendish bananas – has now spread to Pakistan and Lebanon. TR4 was also reported in Queensland, Australia, on 15 March 2015. These events underline once more the extent of the threat TR4 poses to global banana production. Wageningen UR (University & Research centre) has joined forces with Asim Agriculture Farm in Pakistan and Debbane Agri Group in Lebanon to analyse samples from symptomatic plants. The results were published yesterday in the journal Plant Disease.
Pakistan Hadi Bux Laghari from Asim Agriculture Farm in Tando Allahyar, Sindh, Pakistan, detected suspicious symptoms of wilt on banana plants and made an appeal on an online forum. The Wageningen UR scientist Gert Kema offered to analyse samples of the plant. After several experimental steps, including DNA diagnosis, isolation of the fungus and infection of healthy banana plants in a contained greenhouse at Wageningen UR, Kema’s team concluded that TR had indeed reached Pakistan. Further dissemination of the disease in the country is a grave concern: the pathogen was detected in an area which is prone to flooding and neighbours India, the world’s largest banana producer, with an annual production of nearly 30 million tonnes.
Lebanon A similar request reached Wageningen UR via Debbane Frères in Lebanon. Despite the small affected area of just a few hectares, alert growers raised the alarm and samples were dispatched and analysed at Wageningen. Once again, the diagnosis was TR4.
More than a local issue Kema: “It is unclear how the disease got in Pakistan, but we do know that it spreads very quickly. While the initial infected area was only six hectares, we have reports that over 100 hectares are now affected. This is more than a local issue – it is a threat to the entire region. The appearance of the pathogen in Lebanon is most likely due to local transportation of infected plants, possibly from Jordan, which underscores the need for quarantine and awareness campaigns.”
FAO requests measures to prevent further spread The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently asked countries to take measures to prevent the spread of Panama disease. This includes training people to diagnose the fungus, improving monitoring & reporting procedures, and taking preventive and quarantine measures against further proliferation. In December 2014, experts at FAO, including Kema, discussed the current situation and called for global action against this deadly banana disease.
Panama disease The causal agent of Panama disease is the soil-borne fungus Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense. Other genotypes of the fungus, representing Race 1, devastated plantations of Gros Michel bananas in the previous century – in fact, this was one of the largest botanical epidemics of all times. Global banana production collapsed and was only saved by switching to the resistant Cavendish cultivar.
Now history is repeating itself. Panama disease was diagnosed in Cavendish bananas for the first time in Taiwan in the 1990s. A new, aggressive strain of the Fusarium fungus, colloquially called Tropical Race 4, was found to be pathogenic on the hitherto resistant billion-dollar cultivar. Since then, TR4 has spread throughout Southeast Asia.
“The recent spread to Jordan and Mozambique, and now Pakistan, Lebanon and Australia, shows that we should urgently consider options for international quarantine,” Kema says. “Further expansion of TR4 has potentially huge consequences for the food supply, as well as employment and economic stability in the international banana export sector.”
Resistant varieties Kema and his team are currently screening large numbers of bananas for resistance to Panama disease. “There are many local banana varieties in addition to Cavendish,” Kema explains. “Our goal is to find fruits resistant to TR4 and to identify the responsible genes. Armed with this knowledge, we can start developing resistant bananas together with our partners.” A summary of the data is publicly available on panamadisease.org/en/projects. “We aim to deliver results as soon as possible to support breeders and other teams in their research,” Kema concludes.
Since October 2014 a new PhD student from Indonesia, Fajarudin Ahmad, started at Wageningen University & Research centre to study the genes responsible for resistance to Panama disease.
The program deals with segregating banana populations and state of the art cytogenetics techniques. Last October, Fajarudin started his research with crossing two wild diploid banana accessions with different levels of resistant to the Tropical Race 4 strain of Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (TR4), the causal agent of Panama disease in Cavendish bananas and a range of additional banana germplasm. He created progenies by pollinating the banana flowers by hand and by selfing. In the next months he will use these populations for studying segregation and eventually for genetic mapping of TR4 resistance.
Fajarudin is now propagating the progenies by tissue culture in order to have sufficient plants for statistically sound phenotyping. During this process he devotes his time to preliminary microscopical meiosis observations of pollen mother cells in the parents using DAPI staining enabling him to observe chromosome pairing disturbances.
In the coming years Fajarudin will focus on studying the inheritance of TR4 resistance in banana. Fajarudin: “After four years I hope to have found the genes, which are responsible to TR4 resistance in Indonesian wild germplasm that will support breeding initiatives aiming at delivering resistant bananas to the market”.
On Tuesday the 17th of February, the Dutch kids program “Het Klokhuis” will broadcast an item about the banana recorded in the greenhouses of Wageningen UR. TV-presenter Dolores and Dr. Gert Kema, teach the kids a lot about bananas and the impact of Panama disease and Black Sigatoka on global banana production.
For the coming five years, Stichting Dioraphte is making available over 1.7 million Euros for the banana research of Wageningen UR. Part of this will be used for a research project which will start soon. The larger part of the sum will be used to fund a depth study within the current banana research.
Boosting Stichting Dioraphte has previously been involved in the banana research led by Gert Kema, a banana expert at Wageningen UR. At the start of the research for the fungal disease Black Sigatoka in the period 2007-2009, Stichting Dioraphte provided a financial boost for the Wageningen UR research. Stichting Dioraphte is very impressed by the current extent of the programme, and therefore decided to greatly support the banana research over the next five years with a new donation.
Deepening the research into Panama Disease A large part of the donation will be used to deepen the current research into Panama Disease in bananas. Kema: ‘With this financing, it will be possible to expand the team and establish strategic research lines.’
On November 18, the Wageningen Banana Day (WBD) will be organized. Professor Emeritus Ivan Buddenhagen (UC-Davis, USA), one of world’s renowned banana scientists opens the event with a keynote lecture. After lunch, a walking tour is organized to the Wageningen UR greenhouses and the Food & Biobased Research banana transportation/ripening test facility. At 3:00 pm a Mini-Symposium with various speakers will focus on the challenges in the global banana production.
Please join this exciting event addressing a global crop with global problems! You can join the whole day or attend a part of the program. More information and registration
Recent Comments