Abaca bract mosaic
Leaves curl and roll upward, and the leaf stalks and sheaths show spindle shaped streaks like a cucumber skin.
Crops it strikes
What you see
When to act
Inspect every plant once a month for curled leaves and spindle streaks on the leaf stalks and sheaths. Remove each sick plant at once, after killing the aphids on it and on the plants beside it.
Before you spray
No spray cures it. Rogue sick plants, keep aphids down and plant only clean, virus free planting material.
The insect that spreads it
No spray cures a sick plant. What slows the spread is keeping the banana aphid down, early, before it carries the disease to healthy plants.
How to prevent it
- Plant only virus free corms or tissue culture plantlets from a clean nursery.
- Remove sick plants at once: kill the aphids on them first, then kill and dig out the whole mat.
- Remove bananas with bract mosaic near the field, since banana carries the same virus.
- Keep the field and a circle around each mat free of weeds that harbor aphids.
- Never take suckers from a field that has bract mosaic.
Natural enemies and biological help
- Lady beetles, hover flies and lacewings eat aphids. They lower the spread but do not stop it.
Not sure it is this one?
Many diseases look alike. Send a photo to Anee, the smart farm technician in anee.io. She reads it with your crop, its age and the weather, and tells you what it most likely is and what to do first. In Tagalog or English.