voyager

I have some dwarf and tall apple [brazillian] bananas growing.
The dwarf have been here here for over 15 years, the tall for about 5 years.

We had an eruption about 3 or 4 years ago that affected almost everything growing in our yard.
Only the hibiscuses seemed to be affected nicely.
They liked the soil being acidified by sunphur gasses from the eruption.

The bananas were somewhat stunted, and badly affected by bunchy-top in the large newer groupings I had set up.
The dwarfs were the worst affected, infecting most of them while I ended up destroying almost all of the remaining dwarfs.

I have 2 dwarfs with pups remaining in the old original separated planting area that were not affected, probably due to their separation.
I'm keeping them as a seed if I decide to regrow and enlarge the dwarf planting again.

The talls were affected by the bunchy-top, but nowhere as severely.
Most of them survived and have been increasing in number.
A relative few died from the b-t infection.
The two banana plots of tall and dwarf had about 50 plants each to begin with producing fruit year around until the infection.

From the experience here, I'm thinking the talls are more resistant to b-t than the dwarfs.
There is also an old planting of Ice Creams, that like the dwarfs were from the previous owner.
I didn't like them, so let the weeds just overgrow them.
They are still growing nicely poking up through the weeds.
I have to keep cutting them back so they don't overcrowd an adjacent orange tree.
They seem to have been affected by the b-t even less.

Any knowledge of b-t infection comparison between the various edible banana cultivars?

OllieB497

From what I’ve researched, all banana varieties are affected by banana bunchy top. From what I’ve read there’s no cure other than termination of the plant and pups.
I don’t know about resilient to it as it’s a aphid thing. I guess maybe the health of the plant and if it’s stressed may contribute. But ultimately it’s the cancer along with tr4 of the bananas. If u see it abs know it’s that then get rid of it and kill the aphids. Its not transmitted by soil as it’s only transported by infected materials. So dig it up and kill the aphids then plop another plant in there.
But that’s the extent of my knowledge. I’m in the UK 🇬🇧 and it’s super rare over here never really seen or heard of it in my area.

Gabe15

I studied BBTV extensively for my masters work at UH, specifically on comparing the susceptibility of various cultivars.

There is no difference in resistance/susceptibility between the tall and dwarf Apple bananas, they react the same.

In your case, it is a small sample size and you so will tend to see differences that are real, but do not represent what would happen if you looked at more plants.

Contrary to how it may feel, BBTV doesn't actually travel that efficiently through a field, and even in the most highly susceptible varieties, there will usually always be some individual plants that avoid infection. It's not because they are resistant, but rather they just dodged the bullet and happened to not be infected. It is moved by the banana aphid which must acquire it from an infected plant, when those aphids move from one plant to another, they don't necessarily go to every single other banana plant in the vicinity immediately, they may only relocate to a few, and it may take a few years if ever to reach every plant. In addition, the health state of the plant can affect how quickly symptoms show after infection, leading to plants that appear healthy but when stressful circumstances arise can reveal an infection they had for far longer.

You cannot deem a plant resistant to a disease unless you actively and purposefully attempt to give that disease to the plant under controlled conditions, otherwise you are at the whim of the variability of nature and the environment and all the many factors that could contribute to the plant not being infected, but have nothing to do with the plant itself.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.