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
Proventricular dilatation disease Proventricular dilatation disease Proventricular dilatation disease (PDD) is an incurable probably viral disease of psittacine birds. It was first recognized and described in 1978 by Dr. Hannis L. Stoddard. Since the first reported cases were involving species of macaw, the condition was termed macaw wasting syndrome. The clinical presentation of this disease varies with the individual as well as in severity of those symptoms. Often the symptoms include a gastrointestinal component, but many times birds suffering from this disease will present with neurologic signs as well, or in lieu of digestive anomalies. Gastrointestinal signs may include: Regurgitation, crop impaction, poor