242 



DISEASES OF CROP-PLANTS 



it can be controlled and prevented from destructive spread by 

 careful measures of quarantine. With Government assistance 

 the infected areas are being planted with the immune " Chinese " 

 banana to be prepared for export as a dried product. 



The disease exists to a serious extent on the Manzana variety 

 but not the Chameluco in Cuba and on the Chameluco but not 

 the Manzana in Porto Rico (Brandes) : in each case the most 

 esteemed and most widely grown of the local kinds. An 

 affection believed to be Panama disease prevents the cultivation 

 of the Gros Michel on any large scale in Trinidad, but no adequate 

 description has been published. A reference by Brandes to 

 the existence of the disease in Barbados appears to be due to a 

 misapprehension. A disease which closely resembles and may 



Fig. 89 

 Macroconidia of Fusarium vasinfectum. Exactly like those of 

 F. cuBENSE IN Size and Shape 



From a drawing by C. W. Carpenter in Journal of Agricultural Research 



be identical with Panama disease seriously affects the Gros 

 Michel in St. Lucia. 



In Central America the disease is present in Panama, Costa 

 Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, and British Honduras. 

 In South America it occurs in Surinam and British Guiana ; 

 there is no evidence of its existence in the large banana-growing 

 districts of Colombia, which are irrigated. 



In India a disease which appears to correspond in all respects 

 with Panama disease is recorded as exterminating one kind of 

 banana in a district of Bengal, while a disease different in its 

 symptoms, but caused by a species of Fusarium has been described 

 from Pusa. Affections similar in their nature to Panama disease 

 occur in the Hawaiian Islands, Australia and the Dutch East 

 Indies, and in the first named the identity of the fungus with 

 Fusarium cubense has been established. 



