Originally Posted by pitangadiego

The point of harvesting hands and not bunches is to spread our the harvest. Bananas mature before they ripen, and may be mature (able to ripen0 but the climatic conditions are not conducive to ripening - which usually means that the weather is too cool. They can continue to hang on the plant and be brought indoors (warmer climate) to ripen one had at a time.

I have a bunch of Ice Cream hanging on the plant currently. The first hands ripened (on the plant) a month ago, but the weather cooled off, so the rest have suspended ripening and I have been picking them a hand at a time to give to my nursery customers as a bonus.

Not completely sure about harvesting the whole bunch and keeping them cool - if that will inhibit ripening the same as leaving them on the plant in cool weather, but harvesting does seem to help initiate ripening even in cooler temps.