A study retracing the bananas’ family tree has found their wild ancestors have rarely crossbred in the last 7,000 years, strengthening calls to diversify the popular crop.
The standard yellow banana currently found on most supermarket shelves are mass cultivated as infertile clones and are therefore genetically identical.
But this makes them particularly susceptible to disease, pests and ecological challenges, writes a team of European and Australian scientists in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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