Gros Michel

That the song "Yes, we have no bananas" has to do with the slow ruin of a previous popular banana variety called the Gros Michel - a variety that succumbed to Panama disease and got replaced by our current fave variety called the Cavendish - which is also slowly getting infected with disease?

green LA girl 2009

You probably have the Gros Michel variety in mind.

'Beatrice and Virgil' 2010

You probably have the Gros Michel variety in mind.

'Beatrice and Virgil' 2010

You probably have the Gros Michel variety in mind.

'Beatrice and Virgil' 2010

So by the 1960s, the Gros Michel that United Fruit had packaged as The One True Banana was dead.

Johann Hari: Why Bananas are a Parable For Our Times 2009

There has been already a case when a variety has been almost completely wiped out: the Gros Michel bananas succumbed to Panama disease in the 1950s. joe smith 11:15 am on January 23, 2009 | # | Reply in the early days of mass deforestation in the pacific north west, the only type of tree planted in the cuts was a single cultivar of pine.

MONOCULTURES, GENETIC DIVERSITY, AND THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE » Sociological Images 2009

By 1960, the Gros Michel was essentially extinct and the banana industry nearly bankrupt.

Banana twilight 2008

Our great-grandparents grew up eating not the Cavendish but the Gros Michel banana, a variety that everyone agreed was tastier.

Archive 2008-06-01 2008

By 1960, the Gros Michel was essentially extinct and the banana industry nearly bankrupt.

Archive 2008-06-01 2008

Our great-grandparents grew up eating not the Cavendish but the Gros Michel banana, a variety that everyone agreed was tastier.

Banana twilight 2008