Banana seeds from a plant seed bank in Belgium. Bananas from the supermarket don't have seeds because they've been specially bred so you can eat them without any annoying seeds.

There are about 1,000 varieties of bananas worldwide, but only one variety is sold in large quantities on the global market: the yellow Cavendish banana. About 50 million metric tons of this variety are produced annually. To enable the Cavendish banana to be harvested and sold in large quantities, the plant is grown in monoculture. But the problem with this is that the lack of species diversity makes plants like the banana more susceptible to pathogens.

During his morning rounds, he notes which of the approximately 800 plants are ready to be pollinated with pollen from another plant.

In the wild, bats and birds pollinate the plants. In the greenhouse, that's one of Fernando's jobs.

Gert Kema, co-founder and executive board member of KeyGene. Kema is a professor emeritus of plant pathology at Wageningen University; his research led to the founding of the joint venture “Yelloway.”

Tattoo on Fernando's forearm.