A NEW BANANA

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 105, 30 October 1935, Page 20

A NEW BANANA

SEARCH OF THE SCIENTISTS

An ell'ort to discover a new vai'iety ' of banana was described to the dele- 1 gates to the Imperial Botanical Conference at Burlington House, London, ' says the "Manchester Guardian." The difficulties of the search and of ■ the transport of tropical fruits gener- ' ally were discussed in a paper by Dr. • C. W. Wardlaw and Mr. E. R. Leonard, ' both of the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture at Trinidad. During the'past decade, it stated, banana inves- [ tigation had centred round the search '■ for a variety of banana to replace the Gros Michel or Jamaica banana, the chief variety of commerce, whose continuous cultivation over wide areas , had virtually been precluded by the ! onset in epidemic form of Panama dis- ■ ease. It was one of the paradoxes in Nature that this particular banana, : though highly susceptible to disease, ' ! was in all other respects almost unique- ■ ly suited to the conditions of bulk i storage and transport required. .It was not easily replaceable by other i varieties. , . Investigations on the keeping quality ■ of possible substitutes, extending over six years, had chiefly served to accentuate the collective advantages possessed by the Gros Michel. A note of optimism, however, might be sounded regarding certain hybrids which had : been obtained in Trinidad by crossing a wild seeded variety of banana with the Gros Michel. "The first hybrid variety," the paper continued, "is open to criticism be-

cause it yields occasional seeds. As these are exceedingly hard, pebble- ! like structures, on which even the most I avid banana consumer would not desire to engage his detitures more than once, it has not been considered ex- | pe'dient to recommend this fruit to the trade. "But the second Immune hybrid is seedless. It shares the .Gros Michel characters, has fine texture and flavour, but individuals tend to be rather short. It has been ascertained that to some extent this defect can be overcome. To biologists and those interested in the banana industry the achievement of fundamental importance is that such a close approximation to the Gros Michel can be obtained from appropriate breeding expex'iments." | BRITAIN'S FRUIT BILL. ! The fact that the apple is a living organism giving off carbon dioxide which, if permitted to accumulate, would eventually.result in the suffocation of the apple was mentioned by Mr. H. Turner, who described some of the problems of the storage and transport of New Zealand fruit. He spoke of the immense amount of time, thought; and money which had been spent in scientific work on behalf of fruit preservation. There was no more valuable form of close land settlement than fruit-growing and no more worthy object on which time and money should be expendedTaking comparisons from the fruit bill of the United Kingdom, Mr. Turner said that imports alone of raw fruit has risen from ■ a yearly " average of 713,000 tons between 1909 and 1913 to 1,350,000 tons in 1934. In the first period the proportion oi Empire-grown fruits included in the imports was only

15 per cent.; it had risen to 45 per cent. in 1934. Professor V. H. Blackman, director of - the Biological 'Laboratories of the Imperial College of Science, and Technology, South Kensington, who presided, said that the future of the lowtemperature research station at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad was uncertain. The conference'passed a resolution' expressing the view that the research station was engaged on investigations of great value not only from the scientific, but the economic view, and hoping that means would be found to provide the financial assistance necessary to enable it to carry on its functions..

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