A new project, based on a recommendation made at the latest ISHS/ProMusa Symposium, will help predict the impact of the dreaded Fusarium strain on banana production in Africa.

The Musa R&D networks representing stakeholders from banana-producing regions join the ProMusa Steering Committee.

After more than 16 years of at times heated debate, an agreement has finally been concluded between the European Union and Latin American banana suppliers regarding the EU trading regime for fresh dessert bananas.

Filipino scientists are using mutation induction to make the Lakatan cultivar resistant to the Banana bunchy top virus.

Two Finnish botanists try to set the record straight on the names Musa balbisiana and Musa velutina.

Surveys in a recently abandoned oasis unearths a previously undescribed cultivar of acuminata origin. 

Genoscope, the French National Sequencing Center, and CIRAD, the French agricultural research institute for development, have announced that a complete sequence of the banana genome should be available in 2 years.  

Stephan Weise and Jim Lorenzen have been elected as the new chair and vice-chair of the ISHS banana and plantain section. 

Last August, experts gathered in Arusha, Tanzania, stressed the need for urgent action to tackle the threats posed by bunchy top disease and Xanthomonas wilt in Africa.

Rony Swennen was awarded the ‘Kadali Puraskar’ in recognition of his tireless work on behalf of smallholder farmers and his contributions to the improvement of banana and plantain.