This is not the first time bananas have faced wipe-out, explains Fernando García-Bastidas, a researcher in plant health who studied TR4 at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands before moving to a Dutch plant genetics company trying to tackle the disease. In the 1950s the industry was decimated by what he describes as “one of the worst botanical epidemics in history”, when Panama Disease first hit. The fungal disease originated in Asia, where it co-evolved with bananas, before spreading to the vast plantations of Central America.
