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 art mosaic portraits by Lillian Colton are also examples. Her seed portraits of celebrities were exhibited in the strictly defined "Crop art" category at the Minnesota State Fair beginning in 1966. Rules for entry of Crop art allow "only seeds from Minnesota-grown farm crops or cultivated garden flowers, fruits, and vegetables" with no wild plant seeds permitted. Colton continued to teach and make Crop art until her death at age 95 in 2007 (Sheehy 2). A new generation of Crop, or Seed artists, known as the "Postmodern School of Minnesota Crop Art" (Sheehy 90) is continuing this folk tradition. Some of