Stairmaster posted:

Dreylad posted:

I really need to do some more research about all the crops government programs have produced, I know in Canada our federal experimental farms have developed a lot of cold-resistant cereal crops. I'm guessing that most of the poo poo we rely on to sustain ourselves were spun out of government research because capital would never be willing to take on that kind of risk, go figure

quote:

As director of the Dominion of Canada’s Forestry Farm in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Les Kerr’s primary job was to develop ornamental and disease-free trees and shrubs to be used as bird habitat and wind breaks. But in 1944, Les Kerr got sidetracked by cherries.

“He was supposed to be working on shelterbelt trees and not edible fruits, but he had crossed Mongolian sour cherries (Prunus fruticosa) to some northern varieties, and to hide his breeding program from the government, he would have farmers who were growing his shelterbelt plants also grow his cherry seedlings,” said Bob Bors, head of the U of S fruit program.

He would visit his trees, select the cream of the crop and cross-pollinate them. Presumably, he continued working with breeding these after his retirement in 1965, but the project remained a secret.

By 1983, Kerr’s clandestine work had led to some interesting cherries, but his health was failing and his program was in jeopardy of being lost forever. “He was dying in the hospital when one of his nursery friends (George Krahn) told him he should inform the university about his secret cherry program,” Bors said. Kerr agreed. He met with University of Saskatchewan fruit expert Cecil Stushnoff, mapped out which farms had his best material, and bequeathed the trees to the university. Kerr died about two weeks later.

Stushnoff and U of S technician Rick Sawatzky picked up where Kerr left off and began crossing his trees to northern European and Minnesota varieties, most of which were obtained from the Vineland Research Station in Ontario. That work yielded the 1999 release of the U of S’s first dwarf tart cherry cultivar, a cold-hardy dwarf cherry called SK Carmine Jewel. Since then, the university has released five others and is continuing to develop new varieties.

Some Guy TT posted:

did a mod sticky this or did someone pay money for that privilege

not really sure how many banana related posts we can make here is it cultural appropriation for the minions to say banana in a funny voice

commie kong posted:

post

T-man posted:

Banana question: I've done some cursory looking into plant factories and other climate-independent growing methods. How can or should we grow bananas locally or in post-climate change hell world?

T-man posted:

Follow-up question: can you make exploding bananas like in SS13

Barnum Brown Shoes posted:

Bananas kind of suck, imo

Ghost Leviathan posted:

I'm p sure saying banana in a funny voice is a universal cultural staple

It's a funny word

Barnum Brown Shoes posted:

Bananas kind of suck, imo

Platystemon posted:

The idea that companies will develope fungus‐resistant bananas is fiction, but not for the reason you think.

First let’s talk about banana genetics. The joke about bananas is that they haven’t had sex for ten thousand years. There is a kernel (that’s a pun) of truth to that. Edible cultivars are sterile, almost by definition.

‘Gros Michel’ could not be bred with ‘Cavendish’ to get something that’s resistant to Panama disease.

However, the forebears of edible bananas were not sterile. We can go to the wild relatives of the domestic banana, breed within each species for fungus resistance, cross two species to get a seedless hybrid, and see how it performs. We’re not modifying a known tasty variety to be resistant to fungus; we’re pulling a slot machine handle and hoping to get something that tastes good and grows well.

Sexual reproduction is great, but there is another way. Clones can diverge through mutations. This can be accelerated with the atomic gardening that gave us the ruby red grapefruit (no, really), but it happens through the centuries regardless.

At around the time the (western) Roman Empire was a going concern, someone in the area of the African Great Lakes obtained a single banana plant. In the centuries since, bananas have flourished in the region. There are now some two hundred cultivars. The majority are picked green and prepared somewhat like a potato, steamed and mashed. There are at least a dozen cultivars that are specialised for beer‐making, the banana equivalent of cider apples. Ugandans eat a quarter tonne of bananas per person per year.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sK2MStmxWM

Here is what it looks like to make banana beer the traditional way. It’s more fun.

Despite the great culinary diversity displayed by East African highland bananas (EAHB), they remain extremely close genetically. Threats to the West’s favourite snack the Cavendish get all the press, but an epidemic in East African highland bananas could be this century’s potato famine.

Scientists in Uganda are working on diversifying EAHBs by finding fertile mutants.


To be clear, a “bunch” of bananas is the entire crop of one plant, not the “hand” they’re broken into at retail. So it’s like finding a needle in a haystack even with the best candidates.



Uganda isn’t the only nation reliant on bananas. Nigeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, China, India, Indonesia, the United States, France (in Guadeloupe), Brazil, and Honduras also have breeding programmes.

So why did I say that companies weren’t going to create fungus‐resistant bananas?

Simple: these are all national efforts.

Let’s ask the big fruit companies what they think about research and development.

David McLaughlin, Chiquita’s senior director for environmental affairs said in 2003, “We supported a breeding program for forty years, but it wasn’t able to develop an alternative to Cavendish. It was very expensive and we got nothing back.” concluding “We concentrate on research into fungicides now.”

Oh dear.

Since then, they’ve backpedaled a little.


Chiquita may say they “never left traditional breeding” but they did sell their program to the government of Honduras. It has since had success.

Their first public release was FHIA‐01 ‘Goldfinger’. Some people think this will be the heir to Cavendish.



There are several contenders. FHIA‐17 has ‘Gros Michel’ for a parent.

Another way forward is genetic modification. This is faster than breeding and produces more consistent results, but like the Chiquita guy said, it spooks Western consumers. There is still a way to use modern biotech in a limited way by breeding bananas the old fashioned way, then looking at their genes and seeing how they turned out in important areas. This saves a lot of time over putting seeds in the ground and waiting till they mature.

It was incredibly stupid for the big fruit companies to shutter their breeding programmes.

Ugandans cannot afford to be so precious about their food. They’re genetically modifying bananas to be a better source of vitamin A.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUUpi7LHBbc

There is western‐funded opposition to GMOs, but it’s tough to argue against “not going blind”.

Here’s a trial of a fungus‐resistant strain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1TvpXKplns

They are using genetic modification to protect the crop they need to survive.

The great threats to the West’s favourite fruit are, in the final sense, ignorance and greed.

Platystemon posted:

This has been described as “like someone asked Georgia O'Keeffe to paint a blueberry bush”.

Crane Fist posted:

Bananas are bad. Trash tier fruit

T-man posted:

typical tankie opinion ergo wrong

Crane Fist posted:

Bananas are counter-revolutionary, while we attempt to bring humanity to it's noble destiny among the uncorrupted stars the banana-likers are content to squat among the apes, consuming their relics of our brutish forebears

Crane Fist posted:

Bananas are counter-revolutionary, while we attempt to bring humanity to it's noble destiny among the uncorrupted stars the banana-likers are content to squat among the apes, consuming their relics of our brutish forebears

Crane Fist posted:

Bananas are bad. Trash tier fruit

Hodgepodge posted:

If you read the thread

Hodgepodge posted:

If you read the thread you might have caught on that bananas are not, in fact, actually something monkies ate in trees. They're the result of humans cultivating nearly inedible plants. They're no more a natural thing than your phone or computer, and the only one content to squat in ignorance is you.

Jasus Christ posted:

Yeah well then why do they fit so great in my hand, like they are meant to be there?



Follow-up question for the wider thread, could we breed bananas that have grooves on the outside of the peel that fit my fingers even more perfectly, so I don't lose my grip when I hold them while running?

Jasus Christ posted:

Yeah well then why do they fit so great in my hand, like they are meant to be there?

DoubleDonut posted:

kongunism

Jasus Christ posted:

I can't overstate how much this made me laugh

Jasus Christ posted:

Follow-up question for the wider thread, could we breed bananas that have grooves on the outside of the peel that fit my fingers even more perfectly, so I don't lose my grip when I hold them while running?

Rand alPaul posted:

Banana bread is amazing.

Rand alPaul posted:

Someone please try to make your own banana beer and report back to us. I don't know where to get sorghum.