Genes from sweet pepper to fortify African banana against devastating wilt disease

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) has published a paper announcing the successful transfer of green pepper genes to bananas. Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) causes millions of dollars worth of damage to banana crops particularly in the Great Lakes region. Two proteins from the green pepper, have shown strong resistance to Xanthomonas wilt, a bacterial disease that is spread by insects picking up BXW when visiting the male flower parts of an infected plant. Read more.