Panama disease in stress-tolerance, yield, or other beneficial traits necessary for commercial varieties. Nevertheless, these efforts are leading to the best control measure for Panama disease of banana. Recently, an R gene (RGA2) was transformed into Cavendish bananas which confers disease resistance to Fusarium wilt tropical race 4. This is the first case of successful resistance in the field and is a promising step towards preventing the loss of the Cavendish cultivars that are a huge portion of banana export production and subsistence of many communities. One major impediment to breeding bananas is polyploidy; Gros Michel and Cavendish bananas are triploid and
McKnight Foundation Collaborative Crop Research Program toward conservation of agricultural biodiversity, breeding and variety selection, seed systems, integrated crop and pest management, risk management and climate variability, nutrition, soil fertility management, and market development. East & Horn of Africa CoP (Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda) The E&HAf CoP aims to improve performance of farming systems primarily through support for crop diversification, for crop improvement and diversification, and an emphasis on management strategies that enhance crop access to scarce soil nutrients and water resources and reduce pest and disease losses. The CoP is also turning attention to post-harvest issues such as consumption, storage, transformation, and markets to increase