Quote:
Originally Posted by Akula
Hey Louis!
Are you taking any unusual (creative) or additional steps to prevent disease since you have increased your planting density?
Thanks!
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Hi Akula,
I will only discuss the GM cultivars as we are stopping any further development of Namwa and will end up replacing them with GM.
Basically, we have very few problems with the two cultivars of GM we handle as they are quite endemic to this region and therefore have adapted to resist local diseases. Our main problem is rust thrips which has obliged us to use some regular mild pesticide spraying. Apart from that, we now only spread from our own pups and macro propagated plantlets and apply a selective breeding process in the spirit of Fukuoka.
Deleafing is very important for us nowadays so as not to let the plant become dormant. Plants that are continuously growing new leaves are healthy, plants that are allowed to become more or less dormant become easily sick. So basically we push them to grow and never stop doing that. It seems to be working for us.
We control pupping, as we harvest the pups, leaving always the strongest until the first pstem flowers, then we start to leave a second pup. We also deleaf the pups as soon as they start to grow larger fronds.
No strangers are allowed into the banana fields and vehicle circulation is very much controlled. Tools and tanks are regularly disinfected
