Love them or loathe them(无论爱恨), bananas are one of the world’s most popular fruit. But a combination of the climate crisis and new killer diseases have had growers concerned over the banana’s threatened extinction(灭绝), something that would impose a huge toll on(造成巨大损失) farmers in countries from Guatemala to Malawi, alongside eradicating a staple(主食；主要的) food.
无论你爱它们还是恨它们，香蕉都是世界上最受欢迎的水果之一。但气候危机和新的致命病害叠加，让种植者担心香蕉面临灭绝威胁，这将给从危地马拉到马拉维等国的农民带来巨大损失，同时也会让一种主食消失。
Now researchers say they have made fresh advances in the race to save them from disaster. This month, Yelloway – a research collaboration between Chiquita, the world’s largest banana company, and the crop-improvement company KeyGene – announced it had developed a fully fertile Cavendish banana, meaning it may be possible, through cross-breeding, to create new banana varieties that are commercially viable and resistant to disease.(本月，Yelloway宣布已培育出完全可育的卡文迪什香蕉，这意味着通过杂交可能创造出具有商业可行性且抗病的新品种。)
如今研究人员表示，他们在拯救香蕉免于灾难的竞赛中取得了新进展。本月，Yelloway——由全球最大的香蕉公司金吉达与作物改良公司KeyGene合作成立的研究项目——宣布已培育出一种完全可育的卡文迪什香蕉，这意味着通过杂交有可能创造出具有商业可行性且抗病的新香蕉品种。
Second only to(仅次于) the tomato in terms of fruit consumption globally, the world grows about 139m tonnes of bananas a year. While there are more than 1,000 varieties, it is the Cavendish that is now found in most fruit bowls, taking over from the Gros Michel cultivar(栽培品种), which fell victim to(成为……的受害者) Panama disease from the 1950s.
在全球水果消费量中，香蕉仅次于番茄，世界每年生产约1.39亿吨香蕉。虽然香蕉有1000多个品种，但如今大多数水果盘里见到的是卡文迪什，它取代了从20世纪50年代起沦为巴拿马病受害者的格罗斯米歇尔品种。