The little-known secrets of bananas

I think when you see the title, you will probably say, that's it? I eat a banana every day, what secrets can it have?

Yes, bananas, apples and pears are basically the three giants of daily fruits. Among them, bananas are more popular because they do not need to be washed or peeled, and are extremely easy to eat.

The total number of bananas consumed in the world each year reaches 100 billion, accounting for almost half of the entire fruit world. However, this big guy usually mixes in the most common fruits and lives a low-key life. In fact, there are many secrets that we don’t know.

Banana tree? Actually it’s grass!

The first thing to know is the definition of banana. The banana plant is the largest herbaceous flowering plant . See? It is a herb! And banana is also a herb that is somewhat related to ginger.

So the banana trees we often see are not actually "trees". Because they do not have wooden trunks or stems, all the above-ground parts of bananas are a structure commonly called "corms" . Because they grow tall and strong, they are often mistaken for trees. In fact, the part that looks like a trunk is just the banana leaves tightly "hugging" each other.

Gravity? It doesn't exist.

Another amazing thing about bananas is that they "defy" gravity. The fruits grow upside down. This is a special process that every banana must go through during its growth.

But when banana fruits first start to grow, gravity makes them bow their heads obediently. It is not until they grow into their own shapes and become "young and strong" young men that they begin to rebel against nature and raise their noble heads.

Newly grown bananas

It’s no wonder that children are too rebellious, because bananas originated from the rainforest. The plants in the rainforest are not the tallest, but only taller ones. Bananas are aggrieved because they are too short and have almost no sunlight in the middle layer of the rainforest.

Banana facing downwards

However, children need sunlight to grow. If bananas were to grow sideways like other plants, they might lose balance due to the excessive weight of the fruit and cause the entire plant to fall over.

Mom, I'm bent

Life has to go on, so if there is no way out, we have to create a way out. The plant has already grown as tall as it can, so the rest is up to the bananas to figure out. So the bananas took advantage of the situation and developed this wonderful way to grow upwards.

Bananas have seeds? Quite a lot of them!

More than 7,000 years ago, the ancestors of Southeast Asia began to grow bananas, but the bananas at that time were very different from the bananas we eat now. The skin was very hard, there were many seeds, and it was not sweet at all. The taste was also very bad because the seeds were too big and there were too many, and the edible part was really pitiful.

If you have seen wild bananas, you will also find that those bananas have seeds. There is no way, they also need to pass on their genes. (The banana's inner thoughts: I am not growing them just for you humans to eat, huh!)

Today's bananas are soft, sweet, and dense. They seem to be a fruit created just for the convenience of human consumption. And that's indeed the case.

Bananas may be the most artificial fruit in the world. This is because most of the bananas we eat are asexual. Thanks to a genetic mutation thousands of years ago, this mutation made the banana fruit sterile, that is, seedless.

Unfortunately, this seedless banana was discovered one day, and the joy of this banana to humans at that time was like the mango without a core today. So the seedless banana was taken away for artificial cultivation.

Then there is a question, this banana is already infertile, how can it be artificially propagated?

We have to give a big compliment to our human wisdom, which is to develop a special planting mode for bananas - monoculture . The operation is very simple, all you need is a knife, cut off the branches of any tree you like, and stick them in the ground, and you can harvest a "new" banana tree. After seedless bananas began to be mass-produced, the fate of bananas changed completely.

Banana: I experienced extinction

Most of the bananas we buy on the market now are the second generation bananas called "Hua Banana" or "Cavendish". According to common logic, the second generation must be an upgraded version of the first generation. But in the history of bananas, it is not the case. On the contrary, the first generation banana is the real "perfect banana".

The first generation of artificially cultivated bananas was called "Big Mac". People who have eaten it describe its taste as amazing. It is truly worthy of the word "banana" and is very sweet and sticky.

If you think that any of the banana-flavored snacks you can buy in supermarkets are too fragrant, it may be the fragrance of Big Mike, because the banana flavor at that time was made based on the flavor of Big Mike.

So since Big Mac is so delicious, why do we need to create Cavendish?

Don't ask, the answer is it's extinct.

Because of the seedless banana breeding method, all Gros Michels are genetically identical copies. So when they encountered the Panama virus, all Gros Michels in the world were wiped out.

Because they are triploids that reproduce asexually, their genetic diversity is very small. So once they are infected by fungi, the whole area will be in trouble. So everyone can only watch Big Mike slowly disappear from the public's sight.

The Cavendish banana we eat now was just a second-rate product that was despised when Big Mike was still around. No one ate it, and it was just an ornamental plant in the houses of dignitaries.

The Gros Michel was gone, but people still needed bananas, so the Cavendish banana was cultivated in the botanical garden of the Duke of Devonshire using exactly the same method.

But did you know that the Panama virus has been upgraded, so the Cavendish banana may also face the risk of extinction. But the difference this time is that there is no substitute for the Cavendish. I wonder if banana freedom will become a luxury in a few years.