jason

]One of my ae bananas has this Fusarium wilt,and their is no way to stop it,I have also lost my 6 foot ae to this as well!! Any help would be great!!!url=http://www.bananas.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=7470&ppuser=883][/url]

inkcube

can you get a close up of the infected areas? i can't tell from this photo. if you do have Panama disease you need to quarantine the plant away from your others and when you you throw away the soil out it in your garbage not your yard or compost - you can spread it from tools, your shoes, your hands, or anything that that will help spread Fusarium from on container to another.

some symptoms of Panama disease: first external symptoms of Panama disease are a yellowing of the oldest leaves or a longitudinal splitting of the lower portion of the outer leaf sheaths ON the pseudostem especially near the base. this is followed by a wilt and buckling of leaves at the petiole base, in some cases, these leaves will remain green. as the disease progresses, younger and younger leaves collapse until the entire canopy consists of dead or dying leaves. typically your suckers will not be infected unlike Pseudomonas solanacearum (bacterial wilt, aka Moko disease) which has similar symptoms but effects the suckers also. if you cut into a p-stem infected with Fusarium it will be harder than a healthy one and you will noticed brownish-red to blackish spots in the tissue

if you suspect Panama disease there is nothing you can really do because the disease cannot be cured, if you repot into clean soil it will only be a matter of time until that soil is contaminated.

mrbungalow

How do you know it's panama disease? The disease usually appears only in tropical areas, and even here there are more or less strict routines when the disease appears.

However, if you really have the disease, get rid of all your plants, sanitize, and start over again.

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momoese

Just what is it that has kept Panama disease from affecting plants in N. America anyway? The cold winter temps maybe? And if this really is PD wouldn't he be best advised to burn the affected plants or does it make any difference that we have the disease in our landfills from infected soil and plants?

mskitty38583

in the panama diease, is it the dirt that causes the problem or is it a fungus on the trees? is it spread by the dirt? or is it an airborn disease? how can you tell if you have panama? ive still been trying to find out more about the afflictions of nanas and there isnt really that much that i can find.maybe im looking in the wrong places, anybody have a site that explaines more?

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the flying dutchman

Here Samantha, some info in our very own WIKI

http://www.bananas.org/wiki/Panama_disease

Ron

inkcube

it is a soil borne fungus that can be spread in a variety of ways; contaminated soil on shoes, hands, tools, etc. i gave the symptoms above but here they are again:

Symptoms:

external symptoms including yellowing or collapse of the older leaves, occur on plants more than 4 months old collapse which occurs close to the stem-petiole junction. Sometimes the base of the pseudostem splits. Reddish to dark brown vascular discoloration occurs in the outer leaf sheaths, pseudostem, rhizome and fruit stalk. fruits do not show symptoms. usually all leaves collapse and the plant dies. ther disorders on banana have similar symptoms to those of Panama disease. Fusarium wilt does not cause wilting and blackening of young suckers nor a dry rot in fruit as can be found in moko disease and blood disease.

Four races of Panama disease (F. oxysporum f.sp. cubense) have been described.
-race 1 attacks cultivars in the 'Gros Michel' (AAA genome) and 'Pome' (AAB genome) subgroups and the 'Silk' (AAB genome) and 'Pisang Awak' (ABB genome) clones of banana;
-race 2 attacks 'Bluggoe' (ABB genome) and close relatives;
-race 3 attacks Heliconia spp.; and
-race 4 attacks cultivars in the Cavendish subgroup (AAA genome) and hosts of races 1 and 2 - it has already destroyed 12,000 acres this year.

until recently, race 4, the most destructive, had been detected on Cavendish cultivars only in subtropical production areas, where cold winter temperatures are presumed to predispose those cultivars to infection. a distinct population of pathogen, called tropical race 4, has caused considerable damage in Cavendish monoculture in tropical regions.

fusarium species live everywhere and can even infect humans but F. oxysporum f.sp. cubense is so far limited to tropical regions.

mskitty38583

thank you inkcube. and thank you flying dutchman. i forget about the wiki sometimes. i think i read it in there before, but ive read so much this last week..you know... info in, info out, sort of thing. ie...school started last monday..i cant even remember what i read in class thrusday. lol. thank yall!

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CookieCows

This thread got me caught up surfing the web reading about fungus and what to do with the affected plants and the ground as I know that we've dealt with having to burn tomato plants but never knew what to do with the soil so did nothing. In reading about this Panama disease I read lots of articles that said to burn the plants and solorize the soil but I had no idea how to solorize the soil. My idiot brain was going in directions like... burn the soil to attain the heat necessary to kill the fungus? LOL In case there is anyone like me that had no clue about this .. here is a site that has an article written in step by step simple intstructions. So now I know how to kill the fungus in the soil. I would imagine with contaminated soil in pots you could spread it out and cover with plastic to solorize the same way?

The article talks about killing the weeds through this method but says at the end that it also kills plant pathogens.

http://landscaping.about.com/od/weed...ling_weeds.htm

Deb

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sandy0225

Jason,
Stop by and pick up some physan 20 to drench it with. I think it might help. It seems to stop most blights/etc. It's listed for anthracnose and other root rots. It's helped some of my bananas I thought were goners.
Sorry to hear about your banana!
Sandy

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inkcube

physan 20 is a temp solution at best, if your plant is infected with fusarium there is nothing to be done, physan will not work within the plant and in a short time the soil will be reinfected, eventually your suckers will be infected. so far the best control of fusarium is methyl bromide, it holds the fungus at bay for up to 3 years in the field, and the bacteria Pseudomonas flourescens. bananas inoculated with this bacteria have shown resistance to all races of fusarium. methyl bromide is an odorless, colorless gas and is not allowed to be used in the US anymore due to it classification as a Class I ozone-depleting substance.