Luigi wondered why there was no back-up of a favoured banana in a global collection. Anne Vezina thinks there’s no need, and suggests that GM could conserve banana diversity.
Indian scientists are exploring GM to make hill bananas, which also have a GI designation, resistant to the bunchy top virus. For Fusarium, a neat system to make bananas resistant to the fungus is being developed in Australia.
In a previous post, you argued that GM bananas threaten crop diversity. Here’s one example how it would actually contribute to conserving a piece of diversity, especially given the difficulty of controlling Fusarium using management measures.
Ah, but would it be the same variety?
I didn’t say there was no need to back it up in a global collection. I just wondered whether it was a priority for the said collection, given that the appeal for this variety seems to depend on an interaction with a specific environment. I mentioned GM as a possible way to preserve terroir effects in the presence of hard to manage diseases.
The variety should have its own name. I don’t think it would be appropriate to market is as Nanjangud rabasale, but if the taste is the same, and consumers don’t object to eating a GM banana, the experience of growing and savouring a banana that has a distinctive taste will have been preserved.
That’s a good point about having to prioritize what goes into the global collection. Sticking stuff into cryo is expensive. So do you have guidelines about what should go in, and what need not?
All I have are opinions. For guidelines, you need to talk with the managers of the global collection.
That’s unnecessarily coy; you’re obviously aware of the guidelines, if there are any, so why not summarise for everyone’s benefit?