Quote:
Originally Posted by meizzwang
These points have already been mentioned, but here's some more insight:
1) deleafing the lower leaves on younger, smaller plants when relying on rain for water might actually increase the growth rate only because more water will get into the root zone. Since those lower leaves are older, they're not as active in capturing PAR, so it might not negatively affect the plants.
2) Chopping off newer leaves may cost you on yield.
2) Getting the plants to produce as many leaves as possible in the quickest way possible is likely the way to induce flowering the quickest.
3) That pH issue has to be resolved if you want maximum growth. Cutting the grass was a good move, but it may not be enough to lower the pH significantly.
4) while adding significant organic matter to the soil can initially be costly and labor intensive (probably not an issue in Thailand though), fruit quality may increase, so you can possibly demand a higher price per pound on the harvest. It'll also probably buffer the soil's pH for much longer periods of time compared to sulfur, which likely requires multiple applications.
One test that I'd like to see is if having the ratio of nitrogen slightly lower than P and K on bananas. Higher nitrogen in other plants tends to delay flowering, while stressing N and increasing P and K induces flowering earlier. Timing of nitrogen stressing might also play a huge role: is it better to stress younger plants, and then increase N near the flowering stage, or vice versa? Or does it have no effect on flowering time?
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Many thanks for the clear and interesting points
The best Namwa in the plantation grow up to fifteen feet and grow quickly (well, for Namwa anyway). They also quickly push up pups that can rapidly reach similar size. These large plants give the largest bunches, up to twelve hands + in some cases, more to come as the mats increase in size and power. Plants in the same field (1000 plants in that field) that flower at a smaller size (but not at a younger age) give small and low value bunches with few hands and small fingers.
The heavy deleafing process involves not letting new plants in new fields fall asleep after transplant while other plants are shooting up to max size. Right now, this process is proving efficient in keeping these plants awake, pushing them to grow up, to grow new leaves, creating strong and healthy stems and larger and larger leaves. Of course, heavy deleafing will stop as soon as the stems reach a certain height, after that, the engine of the plant seems to be running at a good speed and off it goes without interference. I have always found that in any transplanted plant of any kind, there is a slow development until a strategic size and root network is achieved. After that, the plant will suddenly accelerate its growth rate.
Our process aims to ensure that these plants do not stay in this slow phase and become dormant, slowly degenerating through dwarfism.
What is really important in flowering for our Namwa is that they reach their maximum size first. It is of no interest to promote flowering if the plant is not large enough. Big plant = Big bunch and Small plant = Small bunch. They have to get big, They cannot be allowed to grow to half size or less.
The soil alkaline PH is an important problem in some areas of the plantation, we are still considering how to address it. Fortunately the problem only involves maybe 10% of the total acreage. Right now, we solve this issue with folear feeding but I know it is not a long term solution.
Oh!
and labor is a problem actually, hard to find and quite costly and often unproductive. There is actually no unemployment here and nobody starves. If they need money for food or something, they can go into the wild and catch some fish or hunt some game, or pick some wild mushrooms, ant eggs, bamboo shoots and sell them on the side of the road.
