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
Plant disease resistance include the Ring and U-box single subunit, HECT, and CRLs. Plant signaling pathways including immune responses are controlled by several feedback pathways, which often include negative feedback; and they can be regulated by De-ubiquitination enzymes, degradation of transcription factors and the degradation of negative regulators of transcription. Plant breeders emphasize selection and development of disease-resistant plant lines. Plant diseases can also be partially controlled by use of pesticides and by cultivation practices such as crop rotation, tillage, planting density, disease-free seeds and cleaning of equipment, but plant varieties with inherent (genetically determined) disease resistance are generally preferred. Breeding for disease