98 THE BANANA 



or ripe surface tissue. Sound fruit can be affected, and 

 young immature bananas may be attacked if they are in 

 the neighbourhood of rotting fruit or vegetable matter. 

 All fruit should be handled as carefully as eggs, as the 

 spores of the ripe rot fungus will soon find out any bruised 

 surface. 



The Ripe Rot has caused much damage to bananas in 

 the Canary Islands, and also in Australia. The Jamaican 

 banana is not subject to this disease, but the Chinese 

 banana easily falls a victim. 



BANANA SCAB 



The earliest stages,* as they occur on fairly well grown 

 but still green bananas, such as would be cut for shipment, 

 are as follows : A reddish-brown colour appears on the 

 green skin in the form of minute transverse markings. 

 These markings soon merge into a uniform brown area, 

 often of considerable extent, some parts of which may 

 become black. In the midst of this dark-coloured area 

 numerous shallow longitudinal cracks make their appear- 

 ance. Following upon the appearance of the cracks, the 

 skin begins to dry up and take on a greyish-brown colour, 

 the cracks meanwhile assuming larger dimensions. The 

 drying-up extends to the inner layers of the skin, and the 

 pulp is affected, becoming discoloured and dry under the 

 patches of affected skin. Pustules may be found on the 

 diseased skin in the form of minute raised points, which 

 give off spores, by which the disease is spread. Care should 

 be taken to destroy all scabby fruit, and if the disease is 

 prevalent, to spray with Bordeaux Mixture. 



* Agric, Gaz n N. South Wales, 1903, p. 683. 



