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Strategies to revise agrosystems and breeding to control Fusarium wilt of banana

Nature Food volume 1, pages 599–604 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

The recent emergence of the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense tropical race 4 (Foc TR4), the deadly strain that causes Fusarium wilt of banana, has put the banana production chain for export under threat. Here, we propose research priorities and complementary strategies and challenges for effective and efficient mitigation management of Fusarium wilt. Our strategies include diversifying the agrosystems to increase crop resilience, as well as using precision breeding approaches to rapidly assess and introduce disease-resistance genes to develop stable and complete Foc resistance in commercial banana cultivars.

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Fig. 1: Two contrasting banana cropping systems.

Rony Swennen.

Fig. 2: Targeted genome editing of banana using CRISPR-Cas9.

Yasmín Zorrilla-Fontanesi.

Fig. 3: Integrated view of the proposed strategies for Fusarium wilt mitigation management in banana.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Horizon 2020 Project ‘Microbial Uptakes for Sustainable Management of Major Banana Pests and Diseases’ (MUSA; grant agreement ID 727624). The authors also thank all donors who supported this work through their contributions to the CGIAR Fund (https://www.cgiar.org/funders/), and in particular to the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB-CRP).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Yasmín Zorrilla-Fontanesi, Laurens Pauwels

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Tropical Crop Improvement, Division of Crop Biotechnics, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Yasmín Zorrilla-Fontanesi, Bart Panis, Santiago Signorelli, Hervé Vanderschuren & Rony Swennen

  2. Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics (Technologiepark 71), Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Laurens Pauwels

  3. VIB Center for Plant Systems Biology (Technologiepark 71), Ghent, Belgium

    Laurens Pauwels

  4. Bioversity International, Heverlee, Belgium

    Bart Panis & Rony Swennen

  5. Departamento de Biología Vegetal, Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Santiago Signorelli

  6. The School of Molecular Sciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia

    Santiago Signorelli

  7. Plant Genetics Laboratory, TERRA Teaching and Research Center, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, Gembloux, Belgium

    Hervé Vanderschuren

  8. International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), C/o The Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST), Arusha, Tanzania

    Rony Swennen

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  1. Yasmín Zorrilla-Fontanesi
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Contributions

R.S., H.V. and Y.Z.-F. led the writing of the paper. L.P., B.P. and S.S. contributed to the critical reading of the manuscript, and provided suggestions and contributed to the writing of specific sections. Y.Z.-F. composed Figs. 1, 2 and 3. S.S. composed Supplementary Fig. 1. R.S. and H.V. initiated and coordinated the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Hervé Vanderschuren or Rony Swennen.

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Zorrilla-Fontanesi, Y., Pauwels, L., Panis, B. et al. Strategies to revise agrosystems and breeding to control Fusarium wilt of banana. Nat Food 1, 599–604 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-020-00155-y

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