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
Cover crop Cover crop A cover crop is a crop planted primarily to manage soil erosion, soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife in an "agroecosystem" (Lu et al. 2000), an ecological system managed and largely shaped by humans across a range of intensities to produce food, feed, or fiber. Cover crops are an off season crop planted after harvest of the cash crop. The cover crop will grow up to, or into, the winter and may have to be terminated in the spring so as not to interfere with planting the cash crop. Cover crops are of