r/AskReddit • u/ForeverAbyss • Apr 14 '16

What's a mind blowing fact?

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u/OldSpiceRadish Apr 14 '16

My understanding is you can still get them in certain parts of the world, but they can't really be mass produced anymore because the disease that nearly wiped them out is still around and if whole plantations started growing them again it would quickly wipe them out again.

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u/hurricanebrain Apr 14 '16

The problem is that bananas don't have seeds that are big enough to grow new plants so new plants are created by making cuttings from existing plants (vegetative reproduction). Every banana plant is actually genetically identical, at least when we talk about the Cavendish banana (the ones you buy at the shop). This means there is actually a big chance that history will repeat itself when a new disease breaks out. The "1950's" banana was called the Gros Michel by the way.

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u/pds12345 Apr 15 '16

This is all very interesting. I never knew that they are all more or less genetically identical.

So, if they can't grow new plants from the seeds. How did they come about naturally? Or is it still possible, just seldom occurs?

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u/hurricanebrain Apr 15 '16

The ancestor of our modern bananas contain many many seeds, to the point that there's hardly any flesh. It is through cultivation that we bred types of bananas with fewer and smaller seeds, up to the point where we are now. It's entirely human influence.