Banana Fruit

Peeled, whole, and cross section Scientific classification Kingdom: Plantae Angiosperms Monocots Commelinids Order: Zingiberales Family: Musaceae Genus: Musa Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red. In popular culture and commerce, "banana" usually refers to soft, sweet "dessert" bananas. Bananas from a group of cultivars with firmer, starchier fruit are called plantain

They are native to tropical Southeast Asia, and are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea. Today, they are cultivated throughout the tropics. They are grown in at least 107 countries, primarily for their fruit, and to a lesser extent to make fiber and as ornamental plants.

'Cavendish' bananas are the main commercial cultivarAlthough fruit of wild species have large, hard seeds, virtually all culinary bananas have only tiny seeds. Bananas are classified either as dessert bananas (meaning they are yellow and fully ripe when eaten) or as green cooking bananas.
Almost all export bananas are of the dessert types; however, only about 10–15% of production is for export. The United States and European Union are the dominant importers.

Botany Banana 'tree'

Health benefitsAlong with other fruits and vegetables, consumption of bananas are associated with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer and in women, breast cancer and renal cell carcinoma

Individuals with a latex allergy may experience a reaction to bananas.

The juice extract prepared from the tender core treats kidney stones and high blood pressure.

Bananas contain considerable amounts of vitamin B6, vitamin C, and potassium. The latter makes them of particular interest to athletes who use them to quickly replenish their electrolytes.

FibreTextilesThe banana plant has long been a source of fiber for high quality textiles. In Japan, banana cultivation for clothing and household use dates back to at least the 13th century. In the Japanese system, leaves and shoots are cut from the plant periodically to ensure softness. Harvested shoots are first boiled in lye to prepare fibers for yarn-making. These banana shoots produce fibers of varying degrees of softness, yielding yarns and textiles with differing qualities for specific uses. For example, the outermost fibers of the shoots are the coarsest, and are suitable for tablecloths, while the softest innermost fibres are desirable for kimono and kamishimo. This traditional Japanese cloth-making process requires many steps, all performed by hand.

In a Nepalese system the trunk is harvested instead, and small pieces are subjected to a sftening process, mechanical fiber extraction, bleaching and drying. After that, the fibers are sent to the Kathmandu Valley for use in rugs with a silk-like texture. These banana fiber rugs are woven by traditional Nepalese hand-knotting methods, and are sold RugMark certified.

Cultural roles

Cultural roles ArtsThe poet Bashō is named after the Japanese word for a banana plant. The "bashō" planted in his garden by a grateful student became a source of inspiration to his poetry, as well as a symbol of his life and home. The song Yes! We Have No Bananas was written by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn and originally released in 1923 many decades, it was the best-selling sheet music in history. Since then the song has been rerecorded several times and has been particularly popular during banana shortages. The Japanese novelist Banana Yoshimoto (real name: Mihoko Yoshimoto changed her name because she liked banana flowers. SymbolsBananas are also humorously used as a phallic symbol due to similarities in size and shape. This is typified by the artwork of the debut album of The Velvet Underground, which features a banana on the front cover, yet on the original LP version, the design allowed the listener to 'peel' this banana to find a pink phallus on the inside.

ReligionIn Burma, bunches of green bananas surrounding a green coconut in a tray form an important part of traditional offerings to the Buddha and the Nats.

Evolution/Creation DebateThe banana has been used as an argument for creationism. Allegedly, it is carefully designed for human grasp and convenience by God. However, the influence that humans have had on its development rebuts this argument, as early farmers selected bananas among many alternatives to harvest, and thus were biased toward a fruit that is acceptable to humans, thus resulting in today's domesticated bananas.

History

Early cultivationSoutheast Asian farmers first domesticated bananas. Recent archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence at Kuk Swamp in the Western Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea suggests that banana cultivation there goes back to at least 5000 BCE, and possibly to 8000 BCE. It is likely that other species were later and independently domesticated elsewhere in southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is the region of primary diversity of the banana. Areas of secondary diversity are found in Africa, indicating a long history of banana cultivation in the region.
Actual and probable diffusion of bananas during Islamic times (700–1500 AD)Phytolith discoveries in Cameroon dating to the first millennium BCE triggered an as yet unresolved debate about the date of first cultivation in Africa. There is linguistic evidence that bananas were known in Madagascar around that time. The earliest prior evidence indicates that cultivation dates to no earlier than late 6th century AD

The banana may have been present in isolated locations of the Middle East on the eve of Islam. There is some textual evidence that the prophet Muhammad was familiar with bananas. The spread of Islam was followed by far-reaching diffusion. There are numerous references to it in Islamic texts beginning in the ninth century. By the tenth century the banana appears in texts from Palestine and Egypt. From there it diffused into north Africa and Muslim Iberia. During the medieval ages, bananas from Granada were considered among the best in the Arab world. In 650, Islamic conquerors brought the banana to Palestine.
Many wild banana species exist in New Guinea, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
Plantation cultivationIn the 15th and 16th century, Portuguese colonists started banana plantations in the Atlantic Islands, Brazil, and western Africa. As late as the Victorian Era, bananas were not widely known in Europe, although they were available. Jules Verne introduces bananas to his readers with detailed descriptions in Around the World in Eighty Days (1872).

Ripening

The vivid yellow color normally associated with supermarket bananas is in fact a side-effect of the artificial ripening process. Flavor and texture are also affected by ripening temperature. Bananas are refrigerated to between 13.5 and 15 °C (56 and 59 °F) during transport. At lower temperatures, ripening permanently stalls, and turns the bananas gray as cell walls break down. The skin of ripe bananas quickly blackens in the 4 °C (39 °F) environment of a domestic refrigerator, although the fruit inside remains unaffected.

Cavendish bananas have a greenish-yellow appearance which changes to a brownish-yellow as they ripen further. Although both flavor and texture of tree-ripened bananas is generally regarded as superior to any type of green-picked fruit, this reduces shelf life to only 7–10 days, making commercial distribution impractical. For most people the only practical means of obtaining such fruit is to grow it themselves, however this is also problematic, because the bunch tend to ripen together and spoil quickly.

Bananas can be ordered by the retailer and may show up at the supermarket fully green. While such bananas ripen more slowly, the flavor is notably richer[citation needed], and the banana peel can be allowed to reach a yellow/brown speckled phase, continuing to protect firm flesh within, and extending shelf life.

Storage and transport Banana storage room, 1913 Transfer of boxes from refrigerated truck in cold chainBananas must be transported over long distances from the tropics to world markets. To obtain maximum shelf life, harvest comes before the fruit is mature. The fruit requires carefully handling, rapid transport to ports, cooling, and refrigerated shipping. The goal is to prevent the bananas from producing their natural ripening agent, ethylene. This technology allows storage and transport for 3–4 weeks at 13 °C (55 °F). On arrival, bananas are held at about 17 °C (63 °F) and treated with a low concentration of ethylene. After a few days, the fruit begins to ripen and is distributed for final sale. Unripe bananas can not be held in home refrigerators because they suffer from the cold. Ripe bananas can be held for a few days at home. They can be stored indefinitely frozen, then eaten like an ice pop or cooked as a banana mush.

Trade

The banana has an extensive trade history beginning with the founding of the United Fruit Company at the end of the nineteenth century. For much of the 20th century, bananas and coffee dominated the export economies of Central America. In the 1930s, bananas and coffee made up as much as 75% of the region's exports.
As late as 1960, the two crops accounted for 67% of the exports from the region. Though the two were grown in similar regions, they tended not to be distributed together. The United Fruit Company based its business almost entirely on the banana trade, because the coffee trade proved too difficult to control. The term has been applied to most countries in Central America, but from a strict economic perspective only Costa Rica, Honduras, and Panama had economies dominated by the banana trade.The European Union has traditionally imported many of their bananas from former European Caribbean colonies, paying guaranteed prices above global market rates. As of 2005, these arrangements were in the process of being withdrawn under pressure from other major trading powers, principally the United States. The withdrawal of these indirect subsidies to Caribbean producers is expected to favour the banana producers of Central America, in which American companies have an economic interest.

Pests and disasters

Inspecting bananas for fruit fliesWhile in no danger of outright extinction, the most common edible banana cultivar Cavendish (extremely popular in Europe and the Americas) could become unviable for large-scale cultivation in the next 10–20 years. Its predecessor 'Gros Michel', discovered in the 1820s, suffered this fate. Like almost all bananas, Cavendish lacks genetic diversity, which makes it vulnerable to diseases, threatening both commercial cultivation and small-scale subsistence farming. Some commentators remarked that those variants which could replace what much of the world considers are so different that most people would not consider them the same fruit, and blame the decline of the banana on monogenetic cultivation driven by short-term commercial motives.

Fruit crops

These bats have a relatively long snout. Their upper parts are brown to grey-brown with paler under parts. The fur is very fine and silky. The ears and wing bones of C.sphinx are edged in white. Lower cheek teeth rounded without accessory cusps. The wing span of the adult is about 48 cm. Juveniles are lighter than adults. Average forearm length 70.2mm

Behaviour and breeding

The species is gregarious, and typically roosts in same sex groups of 8-9 individuals. The sexes remain separate until the mating season, when group size increases. They are polygynous and it is usual for 6-10 males and 10-15 females to share palm frond tents during the breeding season. which enhances copulation time in the species. Copulation by males is dorsoventral and the females lick the shaft or the base of the male's penis, but not the glans which has already penetrated the vagina. While the females do this, the penis is not withdrawn and research has shown a positive relationship between length of the time that the penis is licked and the duration of copulation.