Why Clone Banana Trees?

The banana crop ends up being almost identical year after year. Very few variations or mutations.

But more susceptible to disease and pests.

True.

Exactly. Any change in it's given, "designed" environment, is likely to threaten it's prospect of survival, or at least prosperity.

According to Murphy's law, changes are always to the worst, and a slim chance is for things to stay the same for too long.

Adaptivity is the name of the game, and genetic variability, is the greatest facilitator

When trees are grown from seed, or produced sexually, you never know how well the fruit will turn out. If you have an existing tree that produces excellent fruit it would be in the farmer/growers best intrest to reproduce this. Since clones exhibit identical genetic properties to the "mother" you can go from having only a few trees producing good fruit to a whole crop trees producing good fruit.

When trees are grown from seed, or produced sexually, you never know how well the fruit will turn out.

I have found this to be true in my personal life as well.

A tree (human) rights activist?

I agree with the other posts. A producer cannot take chances (economic reality).

The bananas don't seem capable of evolving into anything better.

....though there is an European Union Directive on the shape and size of bananas. goodness only knows why.....

I recall an article in New Scientist that suggested that edible bananas come from a specific INFERTILE plant, i.e. no unpleasant seeds, but reproduction of new plants only through cuttings. hence a susceptability to pest; a lot of effort is going into finding new seedless species and being conducted by the growers.

the downside to commercial agriculture is that natural selection or mother nature finding which plant can repel which insect ,virus or bacteria allows for a surviving species. While this is good for the plant it may not be the flavor we want so we risk putting all our eggs in one basket and hope the species can endure.

I remember an article about exotic bananas and the high prices they were bringing in supermarkets a few years back and now the reds and blues and plantains are not to be found in near the places they used to be ! what happened?

Not enough customers I suspect. The Dollar God!!

What may kill the pest may kill us.

banana "trees" do not reproduce sexually. Only propagate.

Cultivated bananas don't reproduce sexually, but besides that, 'Genetic Variability' lies in that so called "Junk-DND", in all those accumulated mutations and allele-variants, ready to jump-in the morphology-wagon and do their part, once the environment changes for the worst, threatening the organism's ability to survive or propagate.

There is nothing unusual about the groth of banana trees. Most comercial and most home orchards for fruit, apples, peaches, pears, cherries, and yes even grapes use grafted trees or vines to ensure the quality of fruit. Grapes are very similar to bananas in that a cutting from one productive vine can be directly planted (its very easy, not much more complicated than just sticking the end in the dirt and keep it watered). The other common fruits have to be grafted but that procedure is not much more dificult. Google it! It is a facinating subject.

Unless you want to eat a banana with a lot of large, hard seeds, you propagate the plants asexually from polyploid (triploid), "seedless" cultivars that have been developed.

Taking this a step further...

Did you know that all the Navel oranges in the world derive from cuttings or grafts from a single mutated (SEEDLESS) tree found in Brazil, dating back more than 180 years..

Being poedantic - they are not trees they are plants! Clones produce true to form - predictable crop?

Actually, the banana is a large monocotyledenous herb that originated in Southeast Asia.

I read a year or so ago that there was a disease that was specific to the main banana variety that is grown and sold worldwide for food (Cavendish) and that the disease was expected to spread and might possibly wipe out the Cavendish within a decade. Apparently, word of the Cavendish banana's imminent demise was overstated and there are plenty of other banana varieties from which its replacement might be chosen.

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030308/food.asp

I've been studying grape production and have learned a few things.

1. A lot of fruit plants do not reproduce true to type when reproduced sexually. Apples, grapevines, etc. are examples of this. I'm not sure about bannanas. However, since the bananas we eat do not have seeds...

2. Cloning can be used to eliminate plant diseases. Look up microshoot-tip propagation.

3. Cloning is a way to produce a large amount of identical fruit producing plant very quickly. This way you get a uniform crop.

4. Cloning does not always reproduce true to type. Mutations can take place during the cloning process.

There were comment made about natural selection and such. However, the conditions that ensure survival do not necessarily make the tastiest fruit. For instance, wild bananas have lots of large seeds. This is not too terribly fun to eat.

The seeds of sexually reproduced bananas are roughly the size and taste of pencil erasers, that's all.

Seal your slightly green, mostly ripe bananas in a plastic bag and you can place then in the refrigerator to extend storage time. This method is very contrary to the common belief that they cannot be refrigerated!

A lot of valuable plants are produced ONLY from cuttings. In some cases this is to preserve exact qualities, but in others it is because the plants are sterile! Think of seedless watermelons, seedless grapes, seedless anything. Some apple varieties have seeds that don't grow. These plants would die out in one generation, except that humans like them enough to propagate them artificially.

Now, can anyone tell me if it's true that the huge white domestic turkeys can no longer mate naturally?

I think it's true about the turkeys...although, I'm pretty sure many of the "partners" of those who post to this site as "Guest" and write all manner of ridiculous things frequently try to mate with turkeys, many of whom are likely large, white, domestic ones.

Oooh! You're mean! But, yeah.

Nah, I'm just a goof.

I want to clone my own banana trees, you say "a stem from an existing tree is planted in the ground, resulting in a new tree." Which part of the stem? Can you please provide more information or where to find information how to do this.

Mahalo

Anton