{"id":89062,"date":"2026-02-21T12:50:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T07:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=89062"},"modified":"2026-02-21T12:50:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T07:20:21","slug":"panama-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/panama-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Panama Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Panama Disease Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, scientists discovered a gene that could save bananas from deadly Panama disease.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Panama Disease<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Panama disease is also known as <\/span><b>fusarium wilt<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>devastating disease of bananas<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> caused by the soil-inhabiting fungus species.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Cause:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It is caused by the <\/span><b>fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which <\/span><b>lives in soil<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and can survive there for many years.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This disease <\/span><b>affects the Cavendish variety<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or the G9 Banana cultivar, which is the most widely grown banana in the world.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Spread:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The fungus resides below ground and <\/span><b>infects the plant through its roots<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The infection then stops water and essential nutrients from being transported to the rest of the plant.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The disease is so deadly that it is <\/span><b>sometimes referred to as \u2018banana cancer\u2019.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Symptoms of Panama Disease<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>leaves begin to wilt,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and the stem of the plant starts turning dark brownish before the plant dies.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first external symptom of Panama is the <\/span><b>irregular yellowing of the margins of older leaves<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which later turn brown and dry out.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These leaves eventually collapse along the leaf stalk or at the junction of the stalk and stem, resulting in a skirt of dead leaves forming around the lower part of the plant.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.downtoearth.org.in\/agriculture\/scientists-may-have-found-an-answer-to-dreaded-panama-disease-in-bananas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">DTE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Panama Disease is a devastating disease of bananas caused by the soil-inhabiting fungus species. Read more about Panama Disease, Cause, Symptoms, Treatment, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":89073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5610],"class_list":{"0":"post-89062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-panama-disease","9":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89062"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89129,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89062\/revisions\/89129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}