Panama disease has been detected on a second far north Queensland banana farm, Biosecurity Queensland has confirmed.

Authorities had been destroying plants at an infected farm at Tully after Tropical Race 4 was found early last month. Biosecurity Queensland today revealed a positive test for the soil disease at a commercial banana farm near Mareeba, 180 kilometres away.

Chief biosecurity officer Jim Thompson said the property had been quarantined while the extent of the disease and its origin were being traced.

Listen Duration: 4 minutes 35 seconds 4 m 35 s Listen Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Queensland's chief biosecurity officer Dr Jim Thompson confirms another far north Queensland banana farm has been locked down ( Craig Zonca ) Download 2.1 MB

In the past five weeks Biosecurity Queensland had progressively ramped up surveillance, tracing, sampling and testing efforts, with more than 70 people now working on the response.

Authorities are taking further samples and will be investigating any links between the two farms but said it was too early to establish a connection.

Dr Thompson said it was disappointing but "no surprise" another case of the disease had been found.

"I guess one of the disappointing issues here is this is a long way from Tully. But that's been our surveillance program, which has been far and wide in terms of reports from people and also looking at suspect areas," he said.

"Samples were taken about 10 days ago ... We have results that have come back now and we have a single positive detection from a single plant, so it certainly will require much more extensive surveillance on the property to determine the extent of the infestation there.

"It's early days of course, it's a shock for the producer — it's only been this morning so yes, in effect it is in lockdown."

Dr Thompson said the development reinforced the importance of strong, on-farm biosecurity practices on banana farms.

"Our focus remains on controlling and containing the disease while we can further determine the extent," he said.

"Slowing the spread is still the best way we can keep the banana industry going for many years.

"It is a slow-moving disease. There's plenty of life left in the industry at the moment and we will continue to work hard to make sure we slow the spread of the disease."

A 10 hectare block of bananas is being destroyed and fenced off as part of the response to Panama disease in QLD ( Supplied )

Australian Banana Growers' Council (ABGC) chairman Doug Phillips said he was working closely with Biosecurity Queensland and was also in discussions with other biosecurity and plant health agencies, as well as state and federal agriculture ministers.

"Confirmation of a second case of TR4 is extremely difficult news for our industry, and devastating news for the grower whose farm is affected," he said.

"However, if there are TR4 infections on banana farms, we need to know about them and we must continue to make every effort to locate and contain all cases of this plant disease.

"The ABGC has two major priorities: firstly, to work with and support the growers from the two affected farms, and secondly, to make sure all our other growers gain every assistance in their efforts to contain this disease."

Tropical Race 4 remains a real threat to Australia's $600 million banana industry with the main commercial variety in Australia, Cavendish, highly susceptible.

The disease, originally identified in the Northern Territory in 1997, was first detected on a Queensland plantation in Tully on March 3.