Sigatoka disease reduces the greenlife of bananas

Effects of Black Leaf Streak Disease and Sigatoka Disease on fruit quality and maturation process of bananas produced in the subtropical conditions of southern Brazil

“…However, this weight reduction did not occur with heavy SD infestation. This result is reminiscent of Cavendish bananas infected by Sigatoka Disease (Chillet et al, 2009), but it is not consistent with results obtained previously in plantains infected by Black Leaf Streak Disease (Cohan et al, 2004). The effects of BLSD observed in this study resembled the effects of other cropping stresses on banana fruit growth.…”

“…Specifically, bananas harvested at a constant physiological age (700 and 960 dd) from plots with a high SD/BLSD severity index did not have the GL predicted by the model described by Jullien et al (2008). Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the GLs observed under the conditions of this study for the control plants at 700 dd (25 days) and at 960 dd (16.7 days) were very low, much lower than GLs measured at these physiological ages under tropical conditions (Jullien et al, 2008;Chillet et al, 2009). This is probably because the model described by Jullien et al (2008) was developed in tropical condition.…”

“…It argues against the hypothesis that the reduced GL of fruits from infested plots is caused by late harvesting due to diameter reduction (Chillet et al, 2009). Specifically, bananas harvested at a constant physiological age (700 and 960 dd) from plots with a high SD/BLSD severity index did not have the GL predicted by the model described by Jullien et al (2008).…”

“…The effects of SD on GL have previously been demonstrated in tropical conditions in Guadeloupe (Chillet et al, 2009) where the FHP is relatively short (about 75 d), but it was never investigated in subtropical conditions such as Vale do Ribeira, southern Brazil, which has a higher FHP (approximately 140 days for fruits harvested at 700 dd and 170 days for 960 dd). Furthermore, the reduction in GL reported here in subtropical conditions was higher than the effect reported earlier in tropical conditions because all bananas harvested at 960 dd were ripe.…”

“…Ramsey et al (1990) found that the GL of bananas harvested at a standard commercial grade from highly infected plants was substantially shortened. Recently, Chillet et al (2009) showed that in the tropical conditions of Guadeloupe, unlike abiotic stresses, SD has a direct effect on the GL of bananas harvested at a constant physiological age. Indeed, bananas harvested from SDinfested plants had a shorter GL than those harvested from low infested plants (control) at the same physiological age (900 dd).…”