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 for disease resistance originated with Sir Rowland Biffen, who identified a single recessive gene for resistance to wheat yellow rust. Nearly every crop was then bred to include disease resistance (R) genes, many by introgression from compatible wild relatives. The term GM ("genetically modified") is often used as a synonym of transgenic to refer to plants modified using recombinant DNA technologies. Plants with transgenic/GM disease resistance against insect pests have been extremely successful as commercial products, especially in maize and cotton, and are planted annually on over 20 million hectares in over 20 countries worldwide (see also genetically modified crops).