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
Brown blotch disease blotch disease causes large economic losses due to a perceived decrease in quality, even though it does not cause any health problems in humans. Brown blotch disease is observed in mushroom farms all over the world. In the UK, the Netherlands and France, 15% of the crop weight is affected by brown blotch disease, while in Italy it is even worse; in the worst years, 40% of the total weight of mushroom crops is affected by brown blotch disease in Italy. Because brown blotch disease affects all mushroom species, exotic mushrooms grown in eastern countries such as Japan, China, and