Category: Magazine Articles

Pests and diseases are major production constraints for the global banana industry costing significant time and money each year in control measures. There are a number of banana improvement programs occurring around the world that seek to address these constraints by developing resistant banana varieties…

By Ashley Walmsley   American Professor Randy Ploetz, says resistant cultivars are the best way forward for Australian banana growers facing a future with Panama Tropical Race 4 disease.   Speaking as one of the international keynote speakers at Congress, Professor Ploetz said Cavendish banana…

With an increasing amount of work being done on water quality in the Wet Tropics, the ABGC’s Industry Strategy Manager, Michelle McKinlay looks at the collaborative approach underway that will spark future improvements. There is a lot of water quality activity happening in the Wet…

Former Australian Banana Growers’ Council (ABGC) chair Doug Phillips received the highest accolade from the Australian banana industry during the 2017 Congress Banana Ball. Mr Phillips was the sole recipient of the ABGC Award of Honour, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the industry…

The discovery of a suspect second case of Panama disease Tropical Race 4 (TR4) on a property in the Tully Valley was not ideal, but was not unexpected. Panama TR4 acting program leader Rhiannon Evans said that although Panama disease was extremely difficult to manage,…

Most banana varieties grown for consumption are seedless.  In the wild, these varieties would not survive and it is only through propagation of corms and suckers or from tissue culture plantlets that bananas can be grown as a crop.  This, however, leads to huge problems…