A news piece published in the journal Nature reveals that the TR4 fungus recently reported to be in a commercial banana plantation of northern Mozambique might have been there for two to three years. The piece downplays the impact of TR4 by noting that the export trade, which is dominated by Cavendish bananas, accounts for only about 13% of global production. What is not said is that twice as many Cavendish bananas are grown for domestic markets, according to the statistics published in the May 2012 issue of FruiTrop.
