At an event organized by the World Banana Forum and the FAO on Fusarium Wilt in Asia: Lessons Learned and Current Innovations, a wide range of panelists from China, India, and Vietnam discussed the threat the fungal disease poses to each country and the best practices to contain and fight it.

Fusarium Wilt is a soil-borne disease that threatens banana plantations worldwide. It is challenging to manage and control. Symptoms include yellowing on the edges of older leaves, which then turn brown and spread to healthy leaves as older ones hang down the pseudostem. Internally, the disease shows through discoloration in the inner rhizome and pseudostem.

China

The webinar opened with a focus on China. In 2023, China had just under 5 million acres of planted bananas, producing 1.52 million tons. The country's banana industry has a production value exceeding 14 billion yuan and provides millions of jobs.

The disease first appeared in Taiwan in the late 1960s and later spread to Guangdong in 1996.

Panelists Wei Wang, a doctor and professor at the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, and Sijun Zheng, a scientist at Alliance Bioversity and CIAT, agreed that careful soil management in banana plantations is key to reducing the spread of the disease.

"Long-term banana planting leads to soil acidification and a decrease in beneficial microbes in the soil, so the application of beneficial microbes is an option to manage and fight the fungi, as well as a way to increase crop yield," Wang said.

Zheng highlighted the concept of “One Health,” emphasizing that soils are the cornerstone of plant health and act as a reservoir of pathogens, beneficial microorganisms, and microbial diversity across organisms and ecosystems.

"This is why biological control is a very good approach to deal with Fusarium Wilt," Zheng added.

He cited an example of a banana farm in Yunnan province integrated with pig farming. Although plants were infected, natural fertilization from pigs improved soil health after irrigation, enabling the banana trees to suppress the disease.

"Applying organic fertilizer and beneficial microorganisms will help the plant combat banana TR4," Zheng said. "Other methods include elicitor applications, cover crops for ecological intensification, screening and identifying natural genetic variations, breeding resistant varieties, inducing plant defenses, and identifying beneficial microbes."

Zheng concluded that China should take specific steps to combat the disease. These include designing novel planting and intercropping systems, training smallholder farmers, monitoring soil quality and microbial diversity, breeding new varieties, and collaborating with other Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines, India, and Thailand.

India

Dr. R. Selvarajan, director of ICAR’s National Research Center for Banana, outlined India’s approach to managing Fusarium Wilt. India, Asia's largest banana producer, utilizes 0.76 million hectares for banana cultivation. Tamil Nadu ranks first, followed by Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Selvarajan identified five pillars for managing the disease:

"The first one is surveillance, which includes mapping and monitoring through artificial intelligence and diagnostic tools. Awareness is critical. As soon as we detect the disease, we can start adopting local quarantine measures," he said.

Quarantine measures, the second pillar, include disinfecting farm tools, demarcating infected sites after eradication, improving legislation to allow only disease-free planting materials, and managing pests like pseudostem weevil and nematodes.

Growers also need cultural practices such as crop rotation, intercropping, using bio-primed tissue-cultured plants, soil and water management, applying biocontrol agents, and eradicating infected plants onsite.

The fourth and fifth pillars focus on introducing and developing resistant varieties and employing biotechnological methods, such as genome editing, to create disease-resistant Cavendish clones.

"We need a multi-pronged approach and to integrate these strategies with collaboration among researchers, policymakers, and farmers," Selvarajan said. "This is essential to manage Fusarium Wilt TR4 in India effectively."

Vietnam

A significant banana producer, Vietnam views banana farming as a primary livelihood source. According to ReportLinker, "Vietnamese banana production is expected to reach 2.5 million metric tons by 2026, with a 1.6% yearly average growth rate since 1966."

Nguyen Huy Chung, head of the Pathology & Phyto-Immunology Department at the Plant Protection Research Institute Vietnam, said the disease’s potential spread can be minimized "through regular surveillance and the implementation of effective management measures."

Chung highlighted three key measures: quarantine, clean planting materials, and cultural practices. These include preventing the movement of banana materials, avoiding suckers in favor of tissue-cultured plants, using resistant or tolerant cultivars like Formosana, and sterilizing boots and farming tools.

Cultural practices such as field sanitation, drainage, applying organic manure to improve soil, using fungicide treatments, crop rotation, and fallowing to reduce TR4 inoculum are critical, Chung said.