Regardless of what tyty has to say about tissue cultured plants, here's my actual experiences with them:
1) I have grown about a third of my bananas from cheap tissue cultured plants, specially coming from eBay, and indeed they bear fruits in due time, but quite a while compared to real banana pups. Sometimes tissue cultured is the only way to get specific banana cultivars, they're cheap, they're practical, and if you are not in a hurry, they are excellent sources of affordable cultivars. After they are established, it really doesn't matter if they are from TC or pups.
2) TC plants when planted directly into the ground even in the warming days of spring often die out and had a very hard time establishing directly. They often die out by just neglecting to water them for a single day in a typical California day. You should plant them into pots, and they would be as good as pups to plant into the soil the very next year. Depending on the size of banana pups, often you can plant them directly into the ground without a problem.
3) TC plants are weak in the sense that they have itty bitty corms. I've had several that the tops were cut off due to accidents, like pots falling down head first into the ground, those plants never came back because there is almost no corm to restart the plant. On the other hand, attach a bare-rooted banana pup unto a rope, drag it around the block, and plant it, it will recover and grow.
4) The major drawback of TC plants, especially from eBay is that they are often mislabeled! It is so easy to make mistake with these plants, especially if you order from multiple cultivars in single trays. Low paid employees would ship a plant and that is their main job to package them, and would simply grab the nearest banana TC plantlet that they can get a hold of, and often you learn that there was a mistake, two to three years later. Not all sellers are like that and there are wonderful sellers who are taking great effort and the extra mile to ensure the cultivars are true as labeled. With pups, often the sellers or hobbyists have grown them, the plants have been proven, and most likely have correct cultivar names.
For hobbyists or collectors with the time patience and care they can give, Tissue cultured plants are very practical as they are often a lot cheaper to ship and of course there are advantages and disadvantages. Most likely, it is the seller's reputation and accuracy of labeling the plants that is my number one criteria for exchange or buying from.
Tyty's banana that I bought have been all mislabeled!
The Texas star turned out to be ornata,
their super cold hardy red variegated banana turned out to be the cold sensitive zebrina.
The kentucky or whatever, turned out to be another ornamental banana.
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Originally Posted by fish2026
good subject for discussion. My agri starts plants seemed to grow in the box on the way here and are fine in a greenhouse.
there are two good questions/topics that you raise in your post.
1. Are tissue culture plants inferior in strength and viability to other plants when grown outside?
2. Are plants raised to a certain age in a greenhouse "weaker " than ones planted directly in the ground? So far I have put 90% of my agristarts plants in the greenhouse ( 6 hrs sun) and they are fine. 10% are in pots outside where they get full day long sun but also wind. ( I live right on the texas coast 55 ft from the ocean)- many of them dont look as good but the Ice Cream ( blue java) are fine. Red inholene ( not too good).
Ive got to transplant these sometime - not sure when is best.
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