The world’s most popular type of banana is facing a major health crisis. According to a new study, a disease caused by a powerful fungus(真菌) is killing the banana, which accounts for 99% of the banana market around the globe. The disease, called Tropical Race 4 (TR4), has affected banana crops in Southeast Asia for decades. In recent years, it has spread to the Middle East and the African nation. Now experts fear the disease will show up in Latin America, where the majority of the world’s bananas are grown.
Once a banana plant is infected with TR4, it cannot get nourishment from water, and basically dies of thirst. TR4 lives in soil, and can easily attach to a person’s boots. If the boots with the funges are then worn on a field where bananas are grown, the disease could be transferred. “Once a field has been infected with the disease, you can’t grow bananas there anymore,” Ploetz says. “The disease lasts a long time in the soil.”
Bananas are produced in mass quantities and are popular among consumers. “They’re what you buy in the grocery store, and what your mom uses to make uses to make banana bread,” Ploetz say. “ Consumers like the way banana looks and testes. But banana are sensitive to this disease. So once one plant gets infected, it just runs like wildfire throughout that entire plantation.”
Bananas have faced this kind of crisis before. In the mid-1900s, the most popular banana at the time was nearly wiped out by an earlier version of TR4.
The solution to address the problem, Ploetz says, is to try to breed another species that can resist TR4. He notes that we still have time before we need to worry about the banana disappearing.
25. What trouble are bananas faced with?
A. Getting disease. B. Polluting the soil.
C. Limited market D. Refused by consumers.
26. The biggest banana growing area in the world is in_____.
A. Southeast Asia B. Middle East C. Africa D. Latin America
27. The way to fight against banana crisis is______.
A. to improve the soil B. to develop new bananas
C. to discover a powerful fungus D. to reduce the quantity of plantation
28. We can know that______.
A. TR4 is produced from bananas directly and then destroys soil
B. TR4 lives in soil and harms a person’s foot by bananas
C. TR4 is created from boots and then infects bananas
D. TR4 grows in soil and infects bananas by boots