Banana bane
The World Bank has sponsored an international project aimed at developing disease-free bananas involving researchers from Australia, the US and Belgium. James Dale of Queensland University of Technology heads the operation in Australia. His research ear-lier had led to the discovery of banana bunchy top, a major destructive virus in Australia and many countries throughout the world. "We now want to prevent the spread of this virus, and another called banana bract mosaic which, so far, occurs only in the Philippines and India. Both diseases can reduce banana yields by between 20 and 100 per cent,' said Dale.