Quote:
Originally Posted by edwmax
Most 'dessert' (that is eatable type) bananas are propagated by division; are sterile and seedless. Seeded type bananas are considered to be ornamental. I don't grow Basjo, but I believe it is seeded. Germination is very long and the success rate is low. Thus propagation by division of the pups from the mother plant. There are a few wild type bananas that do not produce pups and do rely on seeds.
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This is what I indeed tried to find information about.
I did come across these mantras repeated everywhere: "Edible bananas do not need pollination and will make banana fruit without pollination and they are sterile".
Funnily I never found a list of species and varieties that are considered edible in the same context. What I did find is that all bananas are edible in the sense that none of them kills you or makes you sick. Just some banana fruit are not palatable. And many plant profiles about Musa basjoo also claim it is eaten where it originates. So it didn`t help to establish what my Musa basjoo gets counted as.
I am a total layman who has no idea about nothing at all.
But I figured that mankind has bred by selection since the dawn of agriculture. Our big fat juicy apples once were teensy tiny fibrous. Our cereals once were grass seed like any other. Wild pumpkins even were toxic before, now yummy.
So I thought "ok, so maybe mankind meddled and selected edible banana to become bigger and sweeter and seedless..."
So if Cavendish doesn`t make seed anymore- to me it looked like a trait that was desired and selected for. Like we made seedless watermelons, too. And nobody cares about sterility and if all Cavendish in the whole world being clones, it even is desired. That way all bananas look perfectly the same, too. (but it would have been fun to see what happens with sexual reproduction and resistency to sicknesses and so on, alas nope).
But I don`t know where does that leaves my Musa basjoo. Many plants in nature have both ways, vegetative and sexual reproduction. It is not either one or the other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by edwmax
If you are looking to buy banana seeds from the internet, ... DON'T ... You need very fresh seeds and it has been proven that many of the banana seed sellers do not actually furnish real banana seed much less the specific variety you wont. So reliable seed seller for bananas are rare.
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Actually, no. I wasn`t planning on buying seed. I wondered if I would get seed from my own bananas for propagation of my own bananas. Freshness would not have been an issue.
My bananas do make more pups than I can wish for.
But to my (limited layman) knowledge vegetative reproduction clones the motherplant and you get the same genetic makeup once again. Sexual reproduction offers a new mix.
Usually with other plants, like herbacious perennials, I try to propagate from seed because I find that the second or third generation is lot better adapted to the circumstances of my specific garden soil/light/climate than the original plant I bought from the nursery.
So the whole idea of maybe propagating Musa basjoo from seed is only interesting to me if I could use seed from my own bananas, the plant that now has survived 4 years in this climate.
Another reason for my questions in my original post is really just curiosity. I like to know stuff about the plants I grow. And I am a layman and I never studied botany. Maybe for someone who did study botany it is obvious, for me it isn`t. I still wonder if Musa basjoo is self-fertile or not and if I could get viable seed from 1 flower. Even if I don`t try to grow them from seed I would wanna know. Just because.
Quote:
Originally Posted by edwmax
I suspect one reason no one has replied to your above question, if you have done your internet search & homework, you should have already found this info. ... There is an entire section of the forum on banana propagation.
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I did use the search function on this forum and searched for pollination. I don`t need to read about growing Musa basjoo from seed before I know I can expect to get some that are viable.
I spent quite some time on this forum actually and still didn`t find more than the mantra above: edible bananas make bananas without pollination and growing bananas from seed is tricky and don`t bother, use pups.
Neither answers my questions to the extend I feel is needed to say "ok, I know a bit more about what I grow in my garden".