Organic Banana Variety in Supermarkets?
 

Hey everyone,
Just a food for thought kind of question. The organic bananas I've seen sold in local supermarkets look just like the non-organic cavendishes, but considering the diseases facing cavendish plantations today, I'm not sure if the best organic practices and pesticides could counter them. Does anyone know if these are also cavendish type fruit? Thanks!

Re: Organic Banana Variety in Supermarkets?
 

I've had them before. They certainly look and taste like Cavendish to me. The farming practices they use must be different to help prevent disease.

Re: Organic Banana Variety in Supermarkets?
 

I imagine the organic are grown on a smaller scale an any disease is easier to control. What disease ?

Re: Organic Banana Variety in Supermarkets?
 

Re: Organic Banana Variety in Supermarkets?
 

Re: Organic Banana Variety in Supermarkets?
 

From the looks of them, they are the same kind as regular store bananas (gran nain). They might use some other sort of disease/pest prevention/treatment other than conventional methods. Just cause it says 'organic' doesn't mean they don't put SOMETHING on there to keep pests at bay....just not conventional chemicals.

Re: Organic Banana Variety in Supermarkets?
 

:woohoonaner:

Re: Organic Banana Variety in Supermarkets?
 

Re: Organic Banana Variety in Supermarkets?
 

They make it easy

Re: Organic Banana Variety in Supermarkets?
 

Certified Organic does not mean what you think it does.

Re: Organic Banana Variety in Supermarkets?
 

They are the standard Cavendish varieties. There is a good discussion of the pros and cons of "conventional" versus "organic" farming methods for these bananas in "Banana: the fate of the fruit that changed the world" by Dan Koeppel. My summary is that the "organic" bananas at our supermarkets are not necessarily better for you and are probably worse for the environment where they are grown. That's because rather than combating the standard banana diseases with fungicides, the big companies that put bananas in our supermarkets just destroy more rainforest to create a new disease-free field.

Re: Organic Banana Variety in Supermarkets?
 

Thanks everyone for the replies! I appreciate it! I guess the biggest question was if cavendish is struggling already with powerful commerical chemicals, if it was possible they could be grown without them in most places (black sigatoka, yellow sigatoka, cigar rot etc). There are certainly organic chemicals that can be used, but wasn't sure if they'd have enough firepower to keep the diseases at bay. That wouldn't be a concern at least for a time, however, if they started with virgin land as Mark was saying. That's really interesting.

Re: Organic Banana Variety in Supermarkets?
 

A lot of your organic bananas will be grown in drier areas. The big places for it right now are Azua, Valverdi and Montecristi, Domican Republic and Piura, Peru. These are relatively dry areas that have irrigation available. Keep in mind that 40" rain per year in the tropics is "dry"