:: Google scholar, this is all there is : " One of the first patents awarded for NPs research was in 1959 for an antibiotic named Monamycin active against the Panama disease pathogen ( isolated by Ken Magnus and Cedric Hassall with IP assigned to the British NRDC ).
42.
In global commerce in 2009, by far the most important cultivars belonged to the triploid Gros Michel ( also an AAA group cultivar ), became commercially unviable due to Panama disease, caused by the fungus " Fusarium oxysporum " which attacks the roots of the banana plant.
43.
This variety was once the dominant export banana to Europe and North America, grown in Central America, but in the 1950s, Panama disease, a wilt caused by the fungus " Fusarium oxysporum f . sp . cubense ", wiped out vast tracts of'Gros Michel'plantations in Central America, though it is still grown on non-infected land throughout the region.
44.
The Honduras Foundation for Agricultural Research set out to breed Panama Disease resistant'Gros Michel'bananas, and after initial problems due to poor agronomic characteristics of the plants from which the pollen was taken ( male parent ), they developed an improved diploid ( SH-3142 ) which served as the male parent for the development of various hybrids ( FHIA-01, FHIA-18, FHIA-21 and FHIA-250 ).
