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 Trust Crop Trust The Crop Trust, officially known as the Global Crop Diversity Trust, is an international nonprofit organization which works to preserve crop diversity in order to protect global food security. It was established through a partnership between the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and CGIAR acting through Bioversity International. In 2006, the Crop Trust entered into an agreement with the governing body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The agreement recognises the Crop Trust as an "essential element" of the treaty's funding strategy in regards to the "ex situ" conservation and availability