Panama disease Panama disease Panama disease is a plant disease of the roots of banana plants. It is a type of fusarium wilt, caused by the fungal pathogen "Fusarium oxysporum" f. sp." cubense" (Foc). The pathogen is resistant to fungicide and cannot be controlled chemically. During the 1950s, Panama disease wiped out most commercial Gros Michel banana production. The Gros Michel banana was the dominant cultivar of bananas, and the blight inflicted enormous costs and forced producers to switch to other, disease-resistant cultivars. New strains of Panama disease currently threaten the production of today's most popular cultivar, Cavendish. Two external symptoms help
Crop weed of 40–100% and accounts for around $7 billion in losses annually. Around 100 million hectares of land in Sub-Saharan Africa are affected by striga. Barnyard grass has been identified as a culprit in global rice yield losses and certain species have been known to mimic rice. Crop weed Crop weeds are weeds that grow amongst crops. Examples of crop weeds include chickweed, barnyard grass, dandelion, striga and fallopia japonica. Despite the potential for some crop weeds to be used as a food source, many can also prove harmful to crops, both directly and indirectly. Crop weeds can inhibit the growth