sean,
you will often see blue plastic bags covering the bunches in plantations. The bags keep out pests and quicken the ripening process by trapping the ethylene gas. Also, I forget why, but the actual blue coloring I think has something to do with something, but any clear bag will work as well, I just would'nt use a black trash bag.
Joe,
You are right. There are some that take way too long in my opinion, Ive noticed the Reds (Dwarf and Tall) take a longer time to fill and ripen. Ive never seen a 1000 Finger bunch completley fill out, 2 days ago I met with Don Chafin (owner of Going Bananas Nursery), he had a 1000 Finger bunch there that only had about 2ft of fruit (probly had something to do with nutrition), so they dont always take a long time but if you could manage to get a full bunch (like 8ft), then I dont think you could salvage the entire bunch without having some of them being over ripe while others are still filling. I also noticed on this cultivar that it really has a strange flower pattern and it really changes with nutrition amounts. It is known that the first few hands will always be male flowers, and then the females come. But I noticed that with lots of nutrients usually only female (or bisexual) flowers will follow and produce fruit, however, I saw that if you do not fertilize them alot then it will change the flowers back to male. It really is an odd Musa.
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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.
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