Gabe15

In September when I met with all of the Bioversity International staff, including the genebank workers, I brought up the point that there is a fair amount of wild species available in the hobby trade and in botanic gardens that are not even in the genebank yet, and that there should be an effort to collect these relatively easy to acquire species, they were actually very curious about it and agreed to start contacting botanic gardens in Europe for wild species not yet in the genebank.

As for Markku (one of my great mentors and friend), he has worked very hard to save the species he has described, having many of them at the University of Helsinki Botanic Gardens where he works. He has also submitted most of the Chinese species to the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanic Garden, but again it can be very difficult to move them further than that legally, and in order for them to be useful to researchers or hobbyists in the future, they must be moved legally with the international genetic material transfer agreements.

As for something the hobbyist community can give back, if you own some rare or interesting banana plants, you can submit them to the ITC (the international genebank) where they will be preserved and available for free distribution to anyone who needs them. See Bioversity's website for more info.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.