Hey Boys and Girls,
I trying to look into tissue propagation and i stumbled onto the forum, so i am kinda new here.
Little bit of history about my plant and location.
Well, i live in the one of the lower states, Victoria in Australia. Out side of the topical northern states banana plants do not seem to grow very well as it is a bit cold and can get quite frosty. I've spoken to a few other people who grow banana plants in my state but due to the cold they do not fruit.
My grandmother, 33 years ago was in Queensland and on the side of the road there was banana plant and she dug it up and transplanted it at home where it has been since (you cannot do this anymore, not only is it illegal now, they are also no longer found on the road sides).
After 33 years she has developed quite a large personal crop of thriving banana plants (close to 100 plants), Along the back edge of the crop she runs a very high tin fence and shed, this seems to reflect all the sun into the soil and very surprisingly they are able to fruit and bare bananas each year.
Anyway due to the size of her crop she now proactively digs out the suckers and turns them into compost for her other plants.
My grandmother and i while living in different towns both share a dark red mineral rich soil, but after a few feet it turns to a hard clay, i think that also may have some bearing on her success.
I was stopping by my grandmothers house one day as she had just recently gotten out the hospital from breaking her hip and i was lucky enough to be there before she started digging the suckers up for composting and i was able to dig up my own sucker and transplant it into a pot at home, The situtation helped us both, she got free labour and i got a plant.
It was roughly 12inches and had a single root, i thought it was going to die several months ago but now its edging onto about a meter high. I am rather impressed with the growth of the plant as i transplanted it during the middle of winter, which I've recently found out is a no no.
My banana plant is currently planted into a extremely large plastic garden pot, that seems to keep all the warmth in the soil, at the moment i move the pot around to either on my deck or next to the house pillar depending on how bad the wind. I make sure it is well looked after.
The breed of banana plant is Australian Lady Finger ( Musa Acuminata )
I think most people who grow bananas grow the dwarf varieties for indoor use, however these are not dwarfs and the plant itself will grow upto 25ft/7meters tall, i just don't know how long it will take before it matures to that height.
Recently i was able to pick up a few more suckers, two of them are doing well, and one not so well, I am hoping that one day my plants will grow and clone into something similar as to my grandmothers patch.
Ill upload some images of growth shortly. My phone is not connecting well to this laptop, ill be jumping onto the desktop to do it.
*edit* Hmm, appears image shack does not allow uploading without a paid account these days. Using Dropbox give links to the page the image is on but not a direct link.. rather annoying, but anyway.
Photo taken in Nov 2014
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/dmtsmkr27vrpqr3/AAD8ulzCCacnX2JExPfxylbaa
Photo taken 22 Dec 2014
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/g5g98x9rc...DMz2WrT87bJJoa
Photo taken 4th Jan 2015
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/agrd4np6e..._wYrTeIBQSOSga
Photo taken 22nd Jan 2015
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/c3i1lhi0k..._SmSysEqpDC9Ya
My Second Plant.
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/icyorsxs8...JDgZw7ennu4Oca