Musapedia

The banana knowledge compendium

As a crop whose origin goes back to the early days of agriculture, bananas¹ have been observed and experimented on by countless farmers, scientists and banana enthusiasts. Musapedia is an effort to tap into that vast collective knowledge and to make sense of it through concise and clearly written texts that can be editedYou need to register to edit or create a page. Consult the Musapedia toolbox for help. To help you decide where to contribute, you can consult the list of pages in need of expansion. by anyone with information to share.

To ensure that the information is reliable, experts will periodically be asked to review contents related to their field of expertise. It is only through a sustained effort of sharing information and critically examining contributions that Musapedia will become an up-to-date and trustworthy source of knowledge about bananas.

The banana plant

The banana plant is not a tree (it does not have any woody components), but a perennial giant herb. It is an herb because its aerial parts die down to the ground after the growing season. It is a perennial because an offshoot growing at the base of the plant, the sucker, replaces the aerial parts that have died. Read more

A growing threat

Better known under the acronyms BXW or BBW, Xanthomonas wilt is a devastating disease caused by the bacterium Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum. Before 2001, it was found only in Ethiopia, where it affects bananas and its close relative enset (Ensete ventricosum). It has since spread to the Great Lakes region of East Africa, where it poses a threat to food and income security. No resistant cultivars have yet been identified, but some cultivars possess characteristics that make it harder for the bacteria to infect the plants. Unlike most other diseases, which mainly reduce yield, it affects the fruit and eventually kills the entire plant. Bacteria-laden exudates provide the means of transmission to new plants by insects and contaminated tools. Read more

Did you know that ...

... there might be as many as 1000 different types of bananas?

... Xanthomonas wilt is found only in Eastern Africa?

... bananas have a unique nomenclature system?

... the bunch on the ProMusa logo is a Fei banana?

... Hawaiians call the nectar in the male flowers of Iholena bananas pilali?

A Musa champion

Lois Englberger, a nutritionist and advocate of local food, changed the way people look at bananas, or at least their colour. Before she presented results on the levels of provitamin A carotenoids in Karat bananas at the 2004 ProMusa symposium, scientists not familiar with the Pacific region were largely unaware of the existence of yellow and orange-fleshed bananas, much less that they could be used to fight vitamin A deficiency. Read more

Featured image

The banana-producing region of Bushenyi in southwestern Uganda

Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have questions or suggestions.

1. Why bananas and not bananas and plantains? The latter expression is often used to draw attention to the two types of bananas, the sweet ones that are eaten raw and the starchy ones that are cooked. Plantain, however, is not a generic term for cooking bananas. While it is true that plantains are cooking bananas, not all cooking bananas are plantains.

Contributors to this page: Anne Vezina , Leïla Er-Rachiq and System Administrator .
Page last modified on Monday, 09 January 2012 13:50:15 CET by Anne Vezina .