The untold history of banana bunchy top disease

Of all the plant diseases that occur in Australia, banana bunchy top disease would rank high on any list of those that have had the greatest impact on society. Bunchy top first became a major problem in Australia during World War 1 in the Tweed Valley in New South Wales, close to the border of Queensland. The Soldier Settlement Scheme was initiated to provide a livelihood for returned soldiers, and the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales was chosen as the site for a new subtropical fruit industry. Physically and psychologically damaged men were encouraged to settle on the land to grow bananas, only to be left in ruins within two years because bunchy top had destroyed their plantations. Bunchy top did not discriminate, and many other well-established growers also ‘went broke’. The cries for assistance from the banana growers made it to the federal Parliament in Melbourne, and a Bunchy Top Investigation Committee was formed in 1924 with funding equally contributed by the New South Wales, Queensland, and Australian Governments. Charles Magee was the full-time plant pathologist appointed to the investigation, and he did most of the research. Most histories of the bunchy top research program follow the written accounts of Magee, but he only provided a narrow perspective. Several of the major hypotheses about the epidemiology of bunchy top disease, such as that it was spread in the plant’s suckers and was vectored by the banana aphid Pentalonia nigronervosa, were established by growers such as William John (aka Jack) Burton Marks well before the Bunchy Top Investigation Committee began. This paper describes the beginnings of the subtropical banana industry, the introduction of bunchy top disease, and efforts by the scientific and farming communities to find a preventative treatment or cure for the disease.