Scientists have submitted Australia’s first genetically modified fruit – a Cavendish banana – to regulators for approval, saying it has been engineered to withstand a deadly fungus that poses a threat to banana growers worldwide.

The banana, known as QCAV-4, has been genetically modified to resist a fungus known as Panama disease tropical race 4 (TR4), which is threatening the multibillion-dollar Cavendish industry globally.

If approved, the banana would become Australia’s first GM fruit to be approved for cultivation and consumption, as well as the first GM banana to be approved worldwide.

In Australia Panama TR4 was first discovered in the Northern Territory, where it was gradually wiping out the industry, said Leon Collins, chair of the Australian Banana Growers’ Council.

The fungus “attacks the root of the plant and kills it slowly”, Collins said. “It virtually dehydrates the plant and it wilts.”

Collins described the genetically modified QCAV-4 as “another string in the bow … that we can use. One day [we] may not have an industry here growing with normal bananas.”

QCAV-4, the result of 20 years’ work, was developed by taking a resistance gene from a wild banana that is immune to TR4 and inserting it into the Cavendish.

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