Dr. Phyto

banana

Musa × paradisiaca

Diseases & pests on this plant

• Moko disease (Bugtok wilt)Ralstonia solanacearum Race 2EU-notifiable quarantine organism

  Sudden wilt of the youngest leaves, leaves collapse and hang along the pseudostem; fruit prematurely ripens, sometimes with dry rot at the peduncle end; on split pseudostem, ooze of milky bacterial slime from cut vascular bundles within seconds — the diagnostic "ooze test"; fruit internal flesh shows dark grey-brown vascular streaking. Insect-vectored variants of Moko progress faster than soil-vectored ones.

• Panama disease (TR4 strain)Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense Tropical Race 4

  Progressive yellowing of older leaves moving inward, leaves collapse and form a skirt around the pseudostem; split pseudostem reveals dark brown/red discoloration of vascular tissue; corm shows reddish-brown necrosis; whole plant dies; fungus persists in soil 30+ years. Symptoms can be initially mistaken for water stress but the diagnostic split-pseudostem vascular discoloration is the giveaway.

• Banana streak diseaseBanana streak virus

  Discontinuous chlorotic-to-necrotic streaks running parallel to the leaf veins, eventually merging into broader necrotic blotches; pseudostem splitting; reduced bunch weight and finger filling; symptoms typically appear in older leaves first and are most intense in cool/dry stress periods. Symptom expression is highly variable — many infections are asymptomatic for months or years.

• Bunchy top diseaseBanana bunchy top virus

  Successive new leaves emerge progressively shorter and narrower, eventually forming a tight rosette ("bunchy top") at the top of a stunted plant; dark green dot-and-dash streaks visible against light on midribs and along leaf veins; affected plants rarely fruit and the bunch, if formed, is small and malformed. Once a mat is infected, every sucker from that corm carries the virus.

• black sigatokaMycosphaerella fijiensis

  Dark brown to black streaks on banana leaves expanding into elongate dark blotches with grey centers, severe defoliation killing entire plants within 1-2 seasons, bunches fail to fill properly + ripen prematurely with poor quality, complete crop loss in unmanaged plantings.