'Banana apocalypse' could be averted thanks to genetic breakthrough

Researchers have made a breakthrough in the race to save the world's bananas from a devastating disease that could wipe them out, according to a new study.

The bananas we eat, called Cavendish bananas, are threatened by a plant-killing disease called fusarium wilt. This disease has already wiped out other banana varieties, and it devastated banana production in the 1950s.

But in the new study, researchers found that the disease strain threatening bananas today didn't evolve from the strain that caused so much damage in the 20th century and that there may be a way to control its spread.

The team's findings, published Friday (Aug. 16) in the journal Nature Microbiology, could help avert an impending "banana apocalypse," according to a statement from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

"The kind of banana we eat today is not the same as the one your grandparents ate," study senior author Li-Jun Ma, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said in the statement. "Those old ones, the Gros Michel bananas, are functionally extinct, victims of the first Fusarium outbreak in the 1950s."

Related: Why are bananas berries but strawberries aren't?

There are many species of wild banana and we farm numerous varieties. Today, the most common banana found in shops is the Cavendish banana from the species Musa acuminata. Almost all of the global banana exports come from this variety, according to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the U.K.