How 8 Fruits Were Designed And Bred To Be Perfect I Business Insider Marathon

from the popular apple that took 22 years to produce to Japanese grapes that sell for up to $450 a bunch. We travel the world to learn how

fruits

are grown to

perfect

ion. Our first stop is Washington State University, where we learned why it took more than $500 million to create the cosmic apple crisp in the late '90s. The apple industry in Washington state was on the verge of collapse, that's what Due to more than 100,000 acres of trees being cultivated or an apple that was losing popularity, the delicious red that was once a supermarket star, this apple is now criticized for its bland flavor and floury texture at the end of the decade Farmers They had lost about $760 million in 3 years, that's when Bruce Barrett intervened.

I ate an apple every day and began growing what would become the cosmic crisp. The goal was to have a fruit that was as beautiful as the Red Delicious but also had a sweet flavor and a nice crunch. We had all our eggs in one basket. Red Delicious. That's not good economically, it's just not good if we grow more and more of something that people like. Less and less, that's not a good

business

model since then either. Growers have increased production of other varieties, but red delicates still accounts for nearly a third of the apple tree acreage in the state today to successfully take its place, the cosmic crunch needed to last at least. 12 months months approximately 6 months longer than the delicious red, this is because the Super Bowl of the apple industry is the fall season, when farmers harvest almost all the apples that are consumed during the rest of the year, for The goal is to find an apple that tastes just as good in March. as it does in October, which is why Barrett chose the honey crunch on the Enterprise as the parents of the cosmic crunch for its freshness and storage qualities respectively, but even then it took thousands of trials and errors, take a gentle bite and terrible at 10,000 seeds and those seeds grew into trees and we looked at 10,000 of them and a couple showed promise and the one that showed the most promise was Cosmic crisp.

In the first few years of breeding, cosmic crisp seeds grew into seedlings and by the fourth year the seedlings grew into trees and produced their first apple

fruits

and in 2008, although Cosmic Crisp didn't even have a name, it had promising characteristics. The selection that is now called Cosmic Crisp was one of, I think, 10 selections, which meant that they were just moving towards a point where we would get large volumes of fruit that would allow us to do some of that really in-depth evaluation of the fruit in the next 11 years. That in-depth evaluation consisted of tons of tests that evaluated the cosmic crunch, size, shape, color, crunch, juiciness and acidity.

The WSU team tests apple ripeness using iodine to determine the best time to harvest. It binds to the starch that's in the fruit as the fruit ripens, that starch turns into sugar and so on when you've dyed it. with iodine and it is completely purple or black, that shows that it is really unripe, it has a lot of starch, the lighter the pulp, the sweeter the apple, I see that juice, that juice inside makes it pleasant to eat. I can eat this all day. There you have it, that's how you know it, but with hundreds of consumer favorites already on the market, how can a new Apple resist?

You need a big budget, you need a big industry and you need a big product, all those things have to come together. The cosmic freshness has Everything is named after its galactic-looking skin. Experts expect Apple to take over the industry so far. Washington farmers have grown 12,000 acres of cosmic crisp trees, which is in the middle of Apple production for the state and to catch up with their competitors they have paid $10.5 million. has already begun to market the apple and even has its own commercial, the variety will only be available to state producers for the first 10 years.

The producers deserve that advantage, they contributed to the research project and that is why they have a 10-year head. Start the cosmetic crisp went live Dec. 1 with about 450,000 bushels on sale in the U.S. and produces Islands from stores like Walmart and Kroger's, selling for about $3 to $5 a pound as a premium variety. of Apple, which is more than double the price of standard varieties like Gayla, but the apple's creators are confident that Cosmic Crisp is up to the challenge. We want people to really enjoy apples and we feel like that happened. We had to give them better apples.

We had to beat the Golden Delicious. Red Delicious Macintosh. We had to have an apple that was a much better dining experience, so that was our goal in Japan. Ruby Roman grapes are sold only if they reach the

perfect

size, color and sugar content in Japanese culture. Fruits are considered a luxury and gift item, in fact, they are Japanese. Supermarkets often do not carry fruit if it has blemishes or is not the correct shape. Inspectors like Kazu Yoshi Sakurai use very specific criteria to examine each individual grain or grape that grows in the city of Kahoku.

Premium quality grapes account for almost 90% of the harvest and premium specialty grapes account for around 10%. Top bunches can cost between $90 and $140. Premium specialty grapes are priced from 180 to as high as $450, but there is still a category above these two, only one or two bunches a year qualify as premium. In Kahoku, farmers hope to sell a bunch of Premium grapes for over $1000, two bunches made the cut this year, but in 2019 and 2020 no grapes qualified for the premium category, regardless of grade, although all Ruby Roman grapes They taste exceptionally sweet according to The harvest begins in July, just in time for one of the two major Japanese gift-giving holidays.

Oh again, the grapes are only grown in Ishikawa Prefecture and are grown in greenhouses where farmers have better control over the growing process. Each grape is monitored and cared for, so that everyone in a bunch looks totally identical to produce Grapes of the right size they use a grape thinning device and a simple pair of scissors for the second factor they control is light a way of Control the light by adding or removing leaves near the vines to confirm that enough light is entering the greenhouse. Farmers use a different tool through a program they developed with a private IT company.

Growers can then identify how much light they need to add or subtract the final tricky element for the Ruby Roman grape. Farmers have the temperature at which they open. the sides and roofs of the greenhouse to keep it as cool and ventilated as possible, and even then, not all of the Ruby Roman grapes farmers grow will be up to par, so supply is consistently limited. In 2020, only 25,000 bunches of Ruby Roman were put up for sale. A small fraction of the total number of grapes that were on sale in Japan, which was approximately 163,000 metric tons in 2020, it was not until 2008 that the first Ruby Roman Graes went on sale.

The effort to create them began in 1995, when local grape growers and the Ishikawa Agricultural Research Center teamed up to develop a new variety of large red grape and it ended up being the most expensive grape in the world. So expensive that in 2020 a bunch of these grapes was sold at auction for $112,000, that is, about $400 per unit. Grape These are not just any mangoes, they are Tao no tomago or egg of the sun. Stunning, plump, perfectly intact, incredibly sweet red mangoes grown in Miyazaki Prefecture in Japan every April. The prefecture's best mangoes are auctioned at Miyazaki Central wholesale. market, but although Miyazaki farmers spend an entire year preparing these mangoes for auction, there is no guarantee that the fruit will fetch such a high price, because before reaching the auction table, a mango has to be perfect for inside and out, why don't Tao take you?

Mangoes are so difficult to grow which makes them so expensive. The mangoes grown in Miyazaki are of the Irwin mango variety, a type often called apple mango as it turns red when ripe. Irwin mangoes are actually quite common and are also grown in other parts of the world. world and is sold at much lower prices. This is because the exclusivity of Tao not tomago is not linked to the type of mango it is but to the care it receives to generate Buzz at the auction. A mango needs bees to increase its chances of success. Farmers like takuya usually rent bees during the flowering season.

These are flowering mango plants. Bees play a crucial role in plant pollination, as without them mangoes would not grow as much as desired if a plant continues to flower as the farmer wants it to survive. As long as the takuya plants are 35 years old they are 20 years old, however, even if bees pollinate the plants, it does not necessarily mean that all mangoes will qualify as Tao not tomago this season, only those that are in good shape contain visible bones and they are in good condition. The position will have the opportunity to grow successfully. Everything in the greenhouse must run smoothly.

The temperature must be constant. The room is ventilated. The air is dehumidified and the handles are protected from gravity. When everything else is in place, Takuya's priority becomes sunlight if a mango falls. The shadow Takuya will tie it with a rope to climb back up and make sure that the sunlight touches every part of the fruit equally. He developed these Out of Milk CS light reflectors, no matter how much it is worth, Takuya treats each handle with respect in return. Each mango rewards you with a unique flavor. Tuya has been growing mangoes for 16 years, a trade he learned from his father.

This year he grew 9,500 in his greenhouse. They are now ready to be inspected to see how many of them have earned the coveted taon. . Noto title The first inspection is carried out by human eye inspectors who closely analyze the appearance of each mango to make sure they are red throughout with no hints of green on the bottom, then a machine sorts them according to sugar content, the weight and size. These inspections classify mangoes into five. grades two of which are Tao Noto, the mangoes will now head to the Miyazaki Central Wholesale Market for auction. All the care and hard work that yours and other farmers in the prefecture put into their fruits are leading up to this very moment, the hope is to equal or exceed the previous figure of 500,000 yen, yes, the auction has officially started at the market Miyazaki central wholesaler.

This year's 500,000 yen is 300,000 yen more than last year and matches the record of 2019, and the farmer who grew these mangoes is Tya, it is for the third year in a row his mangoes reached the highest price at the auction that they were purchased in a department store in Fukuoka. Today's result was a success for takuya, but even in a country with a strong gift culture like Japan, it is not always guaranteed that such a luxurious fruit will find a buyer at auction after flowering, fruiting, harvesting and auctioning. Takuya's mango plants are ready for a new season and the hard work is not over yet in Mexico.

Farmers grow payas that last only 24 hours before they begin to fade. Due to its flavor and texture, Paya is a type of dragon fruit, once it is picked, time is of the essence after 24 hours, the fruit begins to lose its flavor and texture, which makes bringing PTI to customers It is incredibly difficult and raises the price depending on where you are. I live in Guadara Mexico a batch of 4,000 PES can sell for over $7,400 getting some in the US can cost up to $22 for a bucket of five fruits so what makes this fruit worth the arduous task and why Why is it so expensive to grow clowns?

In cacti, like prickly pear and dragon fruit, they are often confused with dragon fruit due to the similarity of their names Paya and Paha, but unlike dragon fruit or prickly pears they grow all over In the US, in the Mexican state of Kaliso, these spiky fruits become an incredible booster of the local economy when they are in season. Trinidad has been working with payers for 50 years. He started out as a picker and now runs a wholesale and retail

business

. He usually harvests the fruits. fruit overnight and into the early morning hours payers grow on a type of cactus called Organ Pipe Cactus these cacti can grow up to 30 feet tall to grab a patire at the top of the plant Trinidad uses a long tight cane with spikes, the payas are available for a very short period, the season generallyIt begins in mid-April and lasts 60 to 70 days, with the first summer rains dictating the end of the season.

Unlike dragon fruit or prickly pear, payas grow in much smaller quantities overall. Pipe Cactus can bear one fruit per day or 60 plucks throughout the season to start fruiting in moderation. The cactus needs at least 8 years to reach full maturity. You need 15 compared to the full maturity of a dragon fruit. The cactus can bear three waves of fruit. per season of 100 fruits each, once the fruit leaves the cactus, that is when the race begins. Payas are made up of 85% water and are very perishable, they can only last 24 hours before losing texture and flavor. When Trinidad finishes collecting, he has to process. the fruit immediately if you want it to arrive fresh to your customers before they can be sold, workers have to quickly remove the dozens of thorns by hand, while the thorns are hard, the fruit is very fragile, so when cleaning there is Be careful not to remove too much skin, this would make the fruit more tender and spoil faster, since at the peak of the season Manuel can clean 3,000 to 4,000 peas a day with this amount of peas.

A good lot could be worth between $2,000 and $2,700. Praised for their sweetness, they are also rich in vitamin C, fiber, potassium, iron and calcium, and their seeds are rich in omega-3. The plants come in four colors: white, red, purple and yellow, despite being the same type of cactus, each plant will give a different color. with a different degree of sweetness because they spoil very quickly. There are a few ways the ties are distributed each way by determining the price Manuel sells at a stall he has operated with his wife for the past seven years. Market stalls like Manuel's are generally run by local families, but payas are not only sold in local markets.

You can find Trinidad on the Kima Guadara highway at km 49, where he sells his PES at a roadside stall. Berries are cheaper when sold locally in Mexico. The final price varies depending on the size. the fruit, but also on location, a batch of 4,000 high-quality payas that could be worth up to $2,700 at a local market could fetch more than $7,400 for the extra hassle it took to rush them to the city. Andrés runs a payas delivery company with his brother Juan Pablo. They buy payes from wholesalers like Trinidad and Manuel and distribute them to customers in Guadara, the capital of Kaliso and the only place, apart from small towns, where payers are readily available.

Taking payas out of the city and bringing them into the city is a challenge that the payas have faced. the tree for a few hours and there is a high probability that some of them will not reach their destination, that is why it is extremely rare to find payers outside of Mexico, only a handful of companies will risk sending the fruits abroad either by hours of driving across the US border or shipping them first class. They are generally pre-orders that go directly to the customer rather than transporting payers to another Market store. The final price will be double what a customer would pay for a kalis, but it's unpredictability. of the season that plays the most important role I chew in recent years the payas have been even sweeter for the locals the demand is growing companies like Andrés and Juan Bablo are spreading the word outside the city and the Paya market is growing The weather has also been ideal for Paya in recent years, the rains have come a little later than usual and brought less rainfall, which has lengthened the growing season, but this is not necessarily good news in the long term. , while cacti thrive in deserts and high temperatures allow their fruits to grow.

They are not immune to extreme heat. A 2022 study found that 31% of the world's cactus species are currently threatened with extinction by 2050, that number could rise to 90% as a result of the climate becoming hotter and drier. This pressure could make the payout even higher. more fleeting fruit even now in full bloom one season is not enough for locals like Trinidad to sustain year-round in Thailand Farmers carefully cultivate durian known for its unpleasant smell, but also as a sign of respect. Thailand is expected to harvest almost 1 million metric tons. of durian in 2021 durian is native to several tropical climates around the world, including Thailand.

Thailand alone grows more than 300 varieties, but the most expensive durians are grown in the province of NB, they are known as non-durian, they do not constitute the highest grade of durian in Thailand and are often given as a sign of respect, but even among Non-durians include two varieties: the Kano durian, more expensive, and the Monong durian, a little more affordable. Durian is described as having a refined and sweet flesh with a mild fragrance and creamy texture, while other durian is said to have a stronger odor and watery texture, not durian, it has a distinctive taste and smell due to two main reasons: the environment of Nan B and the cultivation practices of its farmers.

Nan B province has been a center for durian cultivation in Thailand for more than 300 years. Farmers in this region have been perfecting their technique for generations using their resources and skills to grow durian of the highest quality possible. One of the resources they depend on is the Cha Freo River, which flows through NB and fertilizes the soil, but the river water does not. It is used to water durian trees. Nury farmers prefer to buy fresh water as they believe it improves the final quality of the durian, as after planting, it takes about six years for a healthy durian tree to bear fruit once the trees begin to flower.

Farmers count the days until the fruits are ripe, depending on the breed this can be 90 to 150 days, but it is not just time and labor that makes non-durian so expensive. The cost of providing this type of care adds up to the cost of water alone to about $2,200 per year. They have to constantly check the trees and look for infections or insects and they wrap each durian in plastic to protect it. They must harvest the durian one by one when each fruit is perfectly ripe. These time- and labor-intensive techniques have a huge impact on flavor. and the final value of non-durian, a 2kg and 2kg monong durian from Aida Farm can cost more than $100, which is about a third of the price of Cano, making it a more popular and affordable option for customers of Kano, on the other hand, is the most expensive non-durian.

You can buy depending on its size, Cano durian from Aira Farm can range between $380 and $530 per fruit, but despite Cano's high price, demand for this variety is growing and supply cannot keep up. One of the main challenges is the climate crisis. The climate required to grow durian also makes farms susceptible to floods, storms and other extreme weather in 1995 and 2011. Floods destroyed almost all durian trees in N Birie. In 2011, around 1,100 acres of durian trees were destroyed. leveled and only 17 acres survived after this bamat. I had to start the six-year process. This is a golden kiwi, a unique strain of kiwi developed through crossbreeding to be sweeter and milder than a normal green kiwi.

Green's old school green is big, brown, very different types of shapes, gold. It just looks fancier, it's a different palette, more subtle, uh, sweeter and it's a more consistent piece of fruit even though they are smaller, gold kiwis cost almost twice as much as green kiwis, in fact, they are so valuable that some buds have been smuggled. It left New Zealand and was sold in lots for $60,000. New Zealand does it because this specific kiwi cannot be grown without a commission from its copyright holder, Zespri, unless you want to be sued and ordered to pay $14 million as if an international smuggler were growing golden kiwis. .

It is so lucrative that it has caused a dispute between New Zealand and China, where the fruit is native, but how can you copyright a fruit and what exactly makes these kiwis so expensive? It's a very easy fruit to eat, it's very soft, you know, without being soft or mushy, uh, yeah, it has hints of melon with the kiwi, look, it's a beautiful tasting fruit, it really is, while kiwis Greens have thick, hairy skin that provides a protective layer. Golden kiwis are hairless and are much more easily damaged here. At We Orchard located in Kery KY in the heart of northern New Zealand, golden kiwis are carefully harvested with gloved hands, increasing labor costs.

It is a very easy fruit to harvest, but you have to be very careful not to damage it. We have equipment. of pickers who have picking bags and wear gloves on their hands so as not to damage the fruit with their nails and everything is done by hand by plucking the fruit and putting it in a bag and then the bags are emptied into the containers. A team of 15 pickers, when doing well, would fill a container approximately every 3 or 4 minutes, but before Peter and his team are allowed to harvest a sample from the orchard they must meet certain criteria, taste is a number of seeds . or the dark color of the seeds, the blackness of the seeds, you can't have just one, two or three of the five passes or whatever, you have to pass them all, this is because this particular variety of golden kiwi is called Sun Gold is controlled by Zespri, a cooperative of kiwifruit growers in New Zealand.

Zespy created Sun Gold by crossing different yellow kiwis over 2 years. It was a delicious big Golden Globe and it was just a perfect piece of fruit and so perfected. strain that helped New Zealand rebuild its kiwi industry in 2010 the disease nearly wiped out most of the country's kiwi orchards causing $900 million in damage, but a newly developed kiwi strain resisted infection zesp sungold Sun gold quickly became popular for its consistently sweet taste and has proven to be more profitable than its green counterpart to this day and this perfected strain accounts for around 67% or $1.9 billion of the value of New Zealand's kiwifruit exports, but not everyone can grow these kiwis.

Zespy only issues a certain number of licenses each year and producers bid. On them in 2022, the average price of a Sungold license will reach $81,000 per hectare. We have intellectual property protections on who can grow it and who shouldn't grow it and Gold Kruit is a handmade product, yes we grow outside of the wild, but there are so many hours put in that they touch them a lot and whether it's fertilizing, pruning, tying, binding the fruit wood, thinning the flowers, needs a lot of attention, but golden kiwis weren't always so perfect when they first arrived in New Zealand produce. market 10 years ago the fruits looked and tasted very different that fruit was disgusting and they were these little hard bullets it was right at the beginning when we started growing it on a scale as a country and like all the new pieces of fruit you need find out how to grow it today they can happen 5 years before a new Sun Gold kiwifruit orchard is ready for harvest.

Joshua Murphy is in charge of planting golden kiwis here at Woa Orchard, one of the largest commercial orchards in the region. The orchard contains around 7 72 hectares of golden kiwis it is up to Joshua to strategically grow vines that will produce high quality fruit for the next 30 to 50 years. It's not just one species if we throw the plant in the ground and it produces a million fruits that big, you know, no, there is actually, there is a lot of selection, if we harvest it too much, we will get a lot of fruits like that that won't sell, so we have to select how many canes we put in the canopy when starting winter pruning.

In June, during the New Zealand winter, Joshua begins pruning The Vines and training their canes or branches to grow into a trellis and eventually form a canopy. Yeah, so this system that I'm doing here with the poles and the ropes again is based on a science. because these rods will grow faster, longer and stronger in that direction instead of just letting them flap in the wind training. Vines growing upward also force plants to store more sugar at the top, resulting in sweeter kiwis. I think it's quite nice. Um, my partner, she says it's like a cross between a kiwi and a tamarillo, yeah, they're more of a designer fruit, if that makes any sense, the green ones are quite pretty too, but the gold ones have that extra bit. a little bit on them, I'll eat some every season, but I won't.

I don't give myself too much now. I make desserts with them. A golden kiwi. Orchard generally needs more practical platform due to its large size since golden kiwi vines produce less fruit orchards are usually larger than green kiwi orchards. A typical green kiwi orchard may have between 12,000 and 14,000 trees per hectare, while A golden kiwi orchard needs between 16,000 and 18,000 trees per factor to produce enoughfruit to make it worthwhile for farmers, so the work that I'm doing now on this plant here is done on about 880,000 plants in this orchard and this is just the beginning stage of establishing the leaders.

Joshua strategically trims The Vines to produce these perfectly sweet golden kiwis depending on the amount of growth which takes between 5 and 20 minutes per plant, thinning the vines by hand allows you to target canes that have started to produce misshapen fruit; This also increases labor costs, since all thinning must be done by an experienced hand. I would say that most people who are abroad and buy a kiwi probably think it comes from a tree, you know, they probably think someone just planted a tree. I don't think many people really understand how much work and work goes into it.

In creating the product they eat after the kiwis are harvested, each kiwi is carefully inspected and consumers don't want to go to the supermarket one day to look for their golden self and discover that it is no longer there or tastes faint. different or the quality is not as good no one likes a blemish and in a way it is a bit sad because it still tastes just as good but Premium fruit has to look perfect and Gold K fruit is quite unforgiving because it is a round piece and gentle. of fruit looks beautiful, any mark on it can be noticed.

Shipping from New Zealand to most countries is already quite expensive due to the distance and not many ships come here, there is not much to do in Al or New Zealand that needs a large container ship for outside of horiculture, dairy and meat, therefore the shipping cost is quite expensive in terms of the contribution it costs to the price of a piece of fruit, fortunately, although golden kiwis do not expire. Quickly, another quality that distinguishes them from green kiwis is that, while a ripe green kiwi lasts up to 5 days, a golden kiwi can last up to seven.

The grower-owned cooperative is the largest exporter of kiwifruit from the island country of New Zealand today. controls 30% of the world's kiwifruit supply in a way that Z coordinates all the efforts of New Zealand kruit growers into a coordinated breeding program and is one of the largest breeding programs in the world when it comes to breeding. horiculture and as a result we get these beautiful pieces of fruit, but it is a lot of work to get to the end point of a beautiful piece of Ki gold in the supermarket. However, after a kiwifruit grower successfully smuggled Sun Gold Sprouts overseas, a number of illegal orchards appeared in China.

Zese has tried to regain control of its golden kiwi variety, but it may be too late. The smuggler was fined $1 million in damages, but the unauthorized Sun Gold Orchards have since doubled in size. Ironically, kiwis originated in China, where they are known as gooseb, while in other countries. struggled to market the New Zealand golden kiwi, the wet climate has made it ideal for growing and perfecting this unique fruit and now the New Zealand golden kiwi remains the gold standard, the most popular in the world.Bananas are becoming vulnerable to the Panama disease fungus, forcing farmers to take special care.

You probably know the Cavendish banana. You can find this type of banana in all supermarkets in the world. They are very popular because they are delicious, look pretty and ripen. as they carry it, it has a high yield, so it has a pretty thick skin, travels well, and tastes pretty good. It comes in its own package, but there is one problem: they are sterile, they have no seeds. Seedless means that Cavendish bananas are clones of each other, so the only way to propagate them is in Ro or by taking new growth called suckers from the base of an older plant, but as they are all genetic copies, Cavendish are really vulnerable to diseases, the domino effect if you have everything wrong with a single clone.

The disease can kill everything, plant by plant, that's exactly what is happening with TR4, one of the deadliest plant diseases out there. The fungus does not spread to humans, but eventually kills the banana plant, so no more fruit grows. Scientists surmised that the fungus probably started at some point. Southeast Asia in 9 years and spread rapidly around the world, then in 2019 it reached Latin America combined with the Caribbean, that area grows 75% of the world's bananas to ensure the fungus does not spread. Farms in Colombia have implemented biosecurity measures. Evanor 2 was one of the first farms in the country to detect TR4 workers wash and disinfect the underside of any incoming car in case there is infected dirt hiding in the treads.

Antonio's team built a cement path throughout the farm, so on their way to harvest the workers are not walking in open fields once they have reached the area ready to be harvested. Workers walk through a disinfectant foot bath made of ammonium in the field. Workers measure the fingers of the bananas to make sure they are ready to harvest. They are usually ready. About 12 to 13 weeks after the fruit stem appears, one worker cuts a 65-pound package while the other catches it and carries it to the cable car. That W cable system takes all those banana bunches to the packing plant.

First, workers disinfect the bunches with chlorine. They then check the quality of the bananas and any signs of fair damage, they cut them up and throw bushels into a huge tank the bath not only preserves the bananas but also removes the latex that naturally occurs in the peel, the bananas are cut in smaller clusters. from 5 to seven next Come Those famous stickers the workers wrap the banana carefully so as not to bruise it that wrapping has holes so that the bananas can ripen since they travel no more than 4 hours after the bananas are harvested those boxes end up on loaded pallets In trucks, the bananas are transported by truck to the nearby port where they are transferred to ships.

This shipment heads to the US with equipment, bananas and people moving along this global supply chain. It's easy to see how the fungus could spread if TR4 sneaks in. On one farm, the Colombian government has set strict guidelines to contain the fungus, meaning they found symptoms such as yellowing of leaves, once the level is identified. 4 on a plant, you cannot simply kill that plant through which the fungus circulates. At 10 feet deep in the soil, once the pathogen is in the soil, it is almost impossible to eradicate, so you have to kill all the plants in that area to continue operating the rest of the farm.

Evan North 2 followed the government's three-zone plan to inject the herbicide. kill all the plants in the area it covers so that birds do not approach the fungus and spread it. There are also channels around the area to keep water away from the infected area in zone B called buffer zone, finally in zone C plants. They are allowed to grow, but are constantly monitored for signs of TR4. José estimates that biosecurity has cost this farm up to $5 million since 2019, so they are expensive, but the measures are working to keep the fungus at bay. These biosecurity measures have contained the fungus in Colombia and prevented it from spreading to Ecuador, the world's largest exporter of bananas, but the fungus can wipe out an entire variety of fruit if it is not stopped, we know this because it happened before, in the early In the 1900s, a banana called Gross Michelle was the most popular, but in the 1950s, a strain of Panama disease wiped out all Gross Michell production.

Fortunately, Cavendish was resistant to that first strain, so it became the banana of choice. The problem was that banana companies built their entire supply chains around this Cavendish variety. In 2019 they exported 20 million bananas and supported millions of jobs around the world, but now the Cavendish is also vulnerable. History repeats itself now with the tropical race and Cav cooking bananas, like plantains, are also at risk of TR4, a food safety risk because the Bananas are a staple food in Latin America, Africa and many other countries , they are part of our daily diet, so yes, the newest breed of Ferium is scary for both Cavendish and bananas, but this time we have advanced scientific researchers around the world who are working towards one. target, this guy invented a banana that did just that in 2019, Dr.

James Dale announced that his team had successfully injected the DNA of a resistant banana into a Cavendish and it worked, we found the solution, we have a line of Cavendish that looks like be completely resistant to TR4. What we haven't done yet is a taste test and that's because GMOs look, smell and feel exactly the same as any other banana. We only changed one, but no one would buy your Miracle banana because it was genetically modified in the EU, most member countries partially or totally ban GMOs, in the USA they are allowed, but there are fears that an argument against GMO is that these modified plants would quickly spread their genes and destroy biodiversity, but with bananas that is not a problem.

The jeans don't move because they are sterile. You can grow a GMO banana next to a non-GMO banana for 50 years and the gene will not move from one to the other. It's incredibly frustrating. There is the solution, but it is a scientific solution, but not one. political solution, so scientists had to go back to the drawing board using what they learned from James to play the non-GMO game. Fernando is a breeder for key genene, a genetics company in the Netherlands, and believes that the best way to circumvent GMO regulation is through traditional breeding, which means you take two different types of bananas, the Cavendish and one that is resistant, and essentially you have the couple and hopefully their child is resistant to Panama disease, but still tastes good, like the Cavendish cross or traditional breeding is something that happens every day in nature so the bees They are pollinating the different flowers with other flowers so that is what we are doing here we are acting like Beast Fernando has found some resistant bananas to cross with Cavendish but most of them are not even edible bananas they are the bananas that are full of seeds like these and AC crossing them with a Cavendish is difficult, they are sterile, very difficult to breathe, it is not impossible, so you can try to cross, but you have to do it many, many times to get just a few seats for James to do. that first GMO banana took almost 10 years since they first filtered those future bananas that are traditionally obtained, it will take the same time, it will take many years because the life cycle of the banana is quite slow, but the longer it takes to breed traditionally a resistant Cavendish, the more the disease spreads and the more ferium strains could be released.

Fernando says there is a broader way to attack this problem: diversity, take tomatoes for example, go to the supermarket and there may be 10 or more different ones. types of tomatoes Cherry Vine beef Roma that's diversity, so if one tomato gets into trouble it won't be a big loss Fernando and his colleagues have the same vision for bananas, we have red bananas, pink bananas, why not try to incorporate them to the market? that you can go to the supermarket and have a whole bank of different banana options that you can choose from. There are hundreds of different varieties of bananas around the world.

A friend of mine picked one up in Pap Guinea and told me if you didn't know. If you think you are eating a strawberry, yes, the diversity and surprisingly different flavors would also help farm worms, but if you grow different types of bananas together, one banana will probably be more resistant than the next in order to stop the spread of So Why haven't companies diversified? Because it is too expensive and complicated to change a $25 billion industry built around a monoculture. Until a solution is found, these biosecurity measures will have to be the short-term solution to keep the big banana business alive in Vietnam Farmers sell the fragile Buddha's Hand fruit that customers often use for tea and worship .

This is a farmer in Dako Vietnam, a small town 45 minutes from Hanoi. He is one of the many farmers in the area who supply these citrons to the capital city, unlike lemons or oranges. The citron has very little juice or pulp. It can be eaten but has a mild flavor. The attraction is in its very tasty and aromatic peel. Buddhist hand citrons are incredibly sought after during the mid-autumn festival known as the This is one of the most important celebrations in Vietnamese culture. The fruits are displayed as an ancestral offering and are used in homes to refreshthe air.

This small town will be the main supplier of these citrons for the event, so demand will be higher than usual for barite today. and his team are harvesting 300 fruits according to the order of A customer the festival is the busiest time of the year for barw Dakar is the main supplier of budd's hand Citron for the national event and barquet will sell approximately three times more than usual because Most of their fruits will be sold at the festival. Timing is crucial for Baret. Their trees need to produce enough fruit on time and grow as much as possible.

But Bwet cannot harvest them all at once. The tree naturally stores water in its roots to feed the tree. fruit and a full harvest would send the tree into water shock, this can kill the tree and rot the roots, in turn destroying your future harvest and damaging the soil. He also prefers to harvest the fruit in dry weather like today for Ping the peso. It is also useful for quickly fulfilling orders after harvest. You will need to plant the trees in new soil. Buddha's hand requires a lot of attention and care. This is Baret's main source of income so he cannot make any mistakes.

Buddha's hand trees grow to about 6 meters tall and begin bearing fruit after the tenth year. This is one of the reasons why the fruit is so expensive compared to a lemon tree that bears fruit after 6 to 12 months. You also need to constantly prune trees and lower branches to encourage growth. Of course, the closer the fruit is to a hand, the more it can be sold, as the fingers are described as beautiful at this stage. In general, the hand of a beautiful bu is large and round, with many even protruding fingers. Barquet prefers fruits with shorter fingers.

It's not just aesthetic since the base is where the fruit stores its essential oils. A larger base means a larger, stronger scent due to these essential oils. British hands have long been used in Asian medicine, although there is no scientific evidence to support its effectiveness. The fingers expand and open only when the fruit is ripe, but farmers cannot control how the fingers will behave. A single tree can produce multiple fruits with different shapes, a major threat to the cultivation of perfect fruiting insects when the trees are in flower. become very attractive to insects and pests, a serious threat is Asian citrus CID, which also destroys citrus even in the USA, since after healthy fruits are harvested, there is still another step important in packaging, fingers break very easily, so Barquet takes special precautions to protect.

With this careful wrapping, he can keep the fruits fresh and potent for at least three months. He has completed today's order and it is ready to be delivered, but it is just the beginning as he prepares to sell for the festival not only locally but also to the expats they honor. to his ancestors, as well as to new customers around the world locally, he sells his fruits for 50,000 to 200,000 Vietnamese dong, approximately 2 to 8 each, but he also sells to international markets in the United Kingdom, a Citron of a single finger costs £25, while in the US a box. five costs $65.

Confectioners and liqueur makers also buy Citron from abroad, especially the dried versions that Barquet sells finger-dried from the less beautiful fruits. Traders only pay about $1 per kilogram, but Barquet sells several thousand tons a year before