Chiquita Unveils New Disease-Resistant Banana: Yelloway One

There’s a brand-new banana on the block that promises to be at least partially resistant to some of the most deadly diseases inflicting everyone’s favorite yellow fruit. 

In late September, Chiquita, in partnership with KeyGene, MusaRadix, and Wageningen University and Research (WUR), announced the new Yelloway One, a banana hybrid that it says is resistant to Tropical Race 4 (TR4) and is partially resistant to Black Sigatoka, both of which are fungal diseases that have long threatened the global banana supply. 

As Food & Wine reported in September, bananas across the globe are facing extinction due to TR4. It specifically affects Cavendish bananas, the world’s most popular type of banana, attacking the roots and causing the plant to rot before dying. Over the last 10 years, the fungus has accelerated its movement, breaching new regions, including Latin America, where much of the global north’s bananas are grown. Luckily, many scientists are on the case, including Chiquita’s. 

The brand noted that the new variety of banana is part of its “Yelloway initiative,” which aims to “develop banana varieties that are resistant to the diseases endangering the world’s banana supply while maintaining the familiar look, feel, and shelf life of the beloved Cavendish banana Yelloway One is the first of its kind — ushering in a new era of banana cultivation.”

According to Chiquita, Yelloway One is the first edible banana to have a combined resistance to these two diseases. “The success of Yelloway’s breeding program in producing a banana variety with natural resistance to these destructive pathogens represents a breakthrough in sustainable banana production,” it added.

Its plants, which are the result of the Yelloway program that launched in 2020 to crossbreed the fruit to find the most “desirable traits” of each, aren’t quite ready for consumers just yet. Chiciquita revealed, the plants are “approaching flowering and fruit-bearing stages in greenhouse environments and will soon undergo field trials in the Philippines and Indonesia,” both of which are regions severely affected by TR4 and Black Sigatoka. These trials will determine their commercial viability.