Panama disease of fruit left in April with harvesting allowed to resume under strict biosecurity arrangements. The government says it is not feasible to eradicate the fungus. Researchers like Wageningen’s Kema say the disease will continue to spread, despite efforts to contain it, as long as susceptible varieties are being grown. The disease was again detected in Tully in July 2017, prompting Biosecurity Queensland to impose quarantine conditions. Currently, fungicides and other chemical and biological control agents have proven fairly unsuccessful, or only successful in vitro or in greenhouses, in the face of Panama disease of bananas. The most commonly used practices
Crop diversity Genes from Bt can be inserted into crop plants to make them capable of producing an insecticidal toxin and therefore a resistance to certain pests. Bt corn (maize) can however adversely affect non-target insects closely related to the target pest, as with the monarch butterfly. Crop diversity Crop diversity is the variance in genetic and phenotypic characteristics of plants used in agriculture. Over the past 50 years, there has been a major decline in two components of crop diversity; genetic diversity within each crop and the number of species commonly grown. Crop diversity loss threatens global food security, as the