Trivia Proofing

The banana can now only continue with human help. Since the domesticated banana plant now works by asexual reproduction, people have to help it produce more seeds. Wild bananas originally had larger seeds, but since people produced it to have smaller seeds so it would be better for consumption, it now has smaller seeds. Those smaller seeds make it harder for the banana plant to reproduce itself.

3 thoughts on “Trivia Proofing

  1. shinichi Post author

    Bananas are also the largest of the herbaceous plants. As an aside, one huge problem for bananas is Panama disease. This disease is a fungus that gets into banana plants and kills them. It killed off one particular variety called Gros Michel by 1960, so commercial bananas had to be replaced by the Cavendish variety. Since Panama disease is now attacking Cavendish bananas as well, researchers have to create a more disease-resistant variety of banana. Bananas of the same variety are genetically identical and they can’t evolve without human help, so the research is needed.

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