• Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    They’ll be gone in 10-15 years? The current popular version anyway. A fungi is destroying them.

    It happened before back in the fifties with the last version. Except there’s nothing really close this time. The other types of bananas aren’t close at all

    • Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca
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      4 hours ago

      That old version “Gros Michel” is what artificial banana flavour is based on. Bananas used to taste like that. The newer “Cavendish” variety is firmer and lasts longer, but doesn’t have the same flavour. It seems like both are being wiped out by disease though, yay monoculture.

      Cavendish seem to be especially vulnerable because they’re all clones. They don’t produce viable seeds, so they’re grafted to new plants.

      • Devjavu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 hours ago

        Might’ve gone on a search bout baanas last night. I now prefer goldenfinger, a type AA cultivar I have never seen in my entire life.

      • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        There is already a gene modified cavendish that is resistant to the fungi, but it’s not legal in the EU so it’s not being used yet

        • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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          3 hours ago

          Maybe, but they are right (AI or fleshbag). I love artificial banana flavour way more then the current banana and have dived deep into the madness that is the banana industry. We are eating lies when we could have been eating Gros Michels if only greed did not prevail.

          • shneancy@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            god no do not bring back Gros Michels, artificial banana flavour is bleh

            i suppose soon we’ll have to compromise and start liking (or not) a new banana flavour though, if that banana disease gets to the current version

    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 hours ago

      ooh so that’s what that is

      i heard an old man mysteriously whisper “enjoy your bananas while they still exist, young person” to me at the supermarket a while ago and i didn’t know what they were talking about but they sounded very serious so i didn’t doubt them.