- Researchers have developed a new disease-resistant banana called Yelloway One.
- Yelloway researchers use conventional breeding techniques, not genetic modification.
- The Yelloway initiative is trying to improve the banana market, which is suffering.
The Netherlands may seem like an unlikely place to grow bananas, but it’s where researchers have recently created a brand new variety called Yelloway One.
Yelloway One looks like bananas you might see in a grocery store, but it’s anything but. It is the world’s first edible banana, resistant to two diseases that are ravaging the fruit worldwide, and could change the way we grow and buy bananas in the future.
In 2020, global fruit company Chiquita partnered with several other organizations – KeyGene, MusaRadix and Wageningen University & Research – to launch the Yelloway Initiative, which aims to solve a problem plaguing the banana industry.
The Cavendish, the most exported banana and probably the variety in your kitchen, is in trouble. Deadly fungal diseases are attacking the plants, threatening the fruit with extinction.
Researchers hope that Yelloway One is the first step in finding a tasty banana that can fight these fungi.
“We don’t expect it to be the production replacement for Cavendish,” Peter Stedman, director of sustainability at Chiquita, told Business Insider. “But it’s proof that we can get there, and it’s proof that we’re ready.”
Finding the building blocks of a better banana
Cavendish is in trouble, in part because it is sterile and cannot reproduce itself. Chiquita
Project Yelloway used conventional breeding techniques — not genetic modification — to make its new banana.
The tricky part of this process is that researchers cannot simply cross Cavendish with more resilient varieties, because Cavendish is seedless and therefore sterile.
Instead, researchers are looking for traits in other banana varieties that match the taste and firmness of a Cavendish.
To that end, Yelloway is studying the DNA of 150 banana varieties to make a sort of banana family tree, Fernando García-Bastidas, head of KeyGene’s banana breeding program, told BI.
Researchers hope that future banana varieties will be similar enough to the Cavendish that people won’t know the difference. Chiquita
They used information about resistance, color, yield and other characteristics of bananas as a sort of Lego system, García-Bastidas said.
“We are able to identify the building blocks required to recreate or improve a particular type of banana,” he said.
They are also using genetic analysis to find Cavendish relatives they can cross with Yelloway One.
Places where bananas are grown should take precautions to prevent the spread of Fusarium wilt. Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Yelloway One is well on its way to flowering and producing bananas, but it’s not yet ready to hit grocery stores.
The next step is to test how it fares in enemy territory. Researchers will grow Yelloway One in the Philippines and Indonesia, where TR4 – a fungal disease – has devastated banana plants.
Making sure history doesn’t repeat itself a third time
A banana plantation hit by a fungal disease in Riohacha, Colombia. AP Photo/Manuel Rueda
Cavendish became the most consumed banana in the world only in the second half of the 20th century. Before that, the Gros Michel variety reigned supreme.
But in the 1950s, a fungus called TR1 wiped out Gros Michel. Cavendish, which is resistant to the disease, became the new fruit of growers.
Now that TR4 is spreading, growers and scientists don’t want to make the same mistake again by relying on a single banana variety.
This is why Yelloway has been involved in the creation of other banana varieties, as well.
“He’s not just looking to get better at Cavendish,” Stedman said. “It’s trying to build strength and biodiversity.”
Li-Jun Ma, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who studies the fungus that kills bananas, agrees that we shouldn’t rely on a single banana variety.
“We need to find ways to increase diversity in our market,” she told Business Insider.
Ultimately, Yelloway researchers envision a future where grocery stores offer multiple varieties of bananas. There will still be a place for Cavendish on grocery shelves, but they won’t be your only option.