Black Leaf Streak Disease (BLSD), better known as Black Sigatoka, is considered the most serious banana leaf disease worldwide, because it reduces both yield (-38%) and postharvest banana green-life (-40%). The control of this disease needs of weekly applications with fungicides, which increase the production costs, especially in a few countries in Latin American, which produce over 80% of total banana traded internationally. These frequent treatments lead to fast evolution of fungicide-resistance fungal strains that cause disease-control failures.
The Federal University of Ceará with Embrapa Agroindústria Tropical (Fortaleza, Brazil) have evaluated the shelf-life and postharvest quality of Tropical, Vitória, Platina, genotypes resistant to BLSD. Postharvest quality included measurements of peel weight, pulp weight, soluble solids, total sugar, starch, total chlorophyll and total carotenoids.
"The best results were obtained by BRS Tropical including a high shelf-life for green life (GL) phase of 22 days, followed by BRS Vitória (13 days). BRS Platina presented the lowest GL phase (11 days). BRS Tropical presented also the highest yellow life (YL), including good postharvest quality at end of ripening as soluble solids (25.5°Brix), total sugars (13.7 g/100 g) and starch (1.3 g/100 g) - the scientists explain - Results suggest that BRS Tropical, which had a longer shelf-life (27 days), may be indicated for export purposes as well as in natural consumption. Due to the short shelf-life, BRS Vitória and BRS Platina were more suitable for the processing industry".
Source: Francisco Oiram Filho, Mônica Maria de Almeida Lopes, Melissa Lima Matias, Thayane Rabelo Braga, Fernando Antônio Souza de Aragão, Márcia Régia Souza da Silveira, Milena Maria Milena Tomaz de Oliveira, Ebenézer de Oliveira Silva, 'Shelf-life estimation and quality of resistant bananas to black leaf streak disease during ripening', 2019, Scientia Horticulturae, Vol. 251, pag. 267-275.