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Question

All the bananas we eat come from trees that are produced through "cuttings" — a stem from an existing tree is planted in the ground, resulting in a new tree. Thus, each tree is a clone of another. Why would growers find it advantageous to produce an enormous series of identical clones, rather than using trees that reproduce sexually?

Answer 1

Everything has its pros and cons. On the one hand it guaranteed that the bananas were all the same for marketing. But the downside is that we now face a problem with a disease that is removing entire countries from the market.

Ever hear the song "Yes we have no bananas"? There is some interesting history there. A disease wiped out the breed of banana that was common before that, and it took a couple of decades to create a new market with a different version.

To quote Wikipedia....
While in no danger of outright extinction, the most common edible banana cultivar 'Cavendish' (extremely popular in Europe and the Americas) could become unviable for large-scale cultivation in the next 10-20 years. Its predecessor 'Gros Michel', discovered in the 1820s, has already suffered this fate. Like almost all bananas, it lacks genetic diversity, which makes it vulnerable to diseases, which threaten both commercial cultivation and the small-scale subsistence farming.

Answer 2

uhhh... if you mean the 'grower' as the plants itself, then i guess maybe because it is more able to plant itself in more than one location??