North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Gary Woods <gwoods@albany.net>]

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 10:31:01 -0500, you wrote:

> But 
>in my limited reading, it would appear that fungal diseases, insect pests, 
>and nematodes have been major problems in commercial banana culture for 
>decades. 

Several years ago, we toured a plantation in Hawaii that is a sort of demo
for things grown there, and the guide mentioned that growers had to change
banana strains occasionally as diseases got to be too big a problem for
whatever they were growing at the time.  BTW, the "roadside weed" bananas
flourish regardless...
As for the media, I'm retired from a peripheral job to TV news (tech;
fixing the cameras they dropped), and newsrooms in general are pretty
arrogant and resistant to any input that disagrees with their concept of
the "story."  Talking to my counterparts elsewhere, that's pretty global,
and quite ancient.  Look at what the press published in American
revolutionary era times....  
There's no substitute for multiple sources to a highly sceptical mind...
In the garden and fruit tree area, I _much_ prefer to listen to "them
what's doin' "  and keep several large grains of salt handy...

Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at www.albany.net/~gwoods
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1200' elevation. NY WO G