Quote:
Originally Posted by edwmax
First Off .... Those are Tissue culture (TC) plantlets, not true banana pups. TCs are lab grown from green plant material. .... Pups are sprouts from a mature banana plant and usually 2ft or 3 ft tall when separated from the mother corm.
Now from your photo above the TCs have not even grown their true leaves yet and only have 2 pre-leaves. ( I forget what they are called). It obvious lab specimen hasn't been in plug trays every long, At this stage of growth the plantlets should still be in a shade-house (80%) or greenhouse under strict controlled growing conditions ( high humidity, heat, misting, grow lights, ect) for 2 or 3 months. Then moved to 50% shade-house for harding off to full sunlight. From TC to field ready, in ground planting would take about 6 to 8 months.
These plantlets are too young to have the reserve store of energy needed to recover from stress as you show in the photos.
I did a quick search for a TC growing description. This one and there are others you can google. Also, note there is a difference between TC plantlets and micro-propagated plantlets, but growing & handling is about the same after the plantlets get to the 50% shade-house stage.
https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/bananas/propagation-bananas
Read the 'Tissue Culture plant handling' section. |
Only thing about what you said is they all had at minimum 2 large leaves as is shown in the first picture. I have since cut them off as they shriveled and turned crunchy and no longer had any green to provide photosynthesis of any kind. So please take a look again at that. But I do believe you are correct that they were TC's and not pup's, I wasn't aware this was a thing. So I have tried to remedy the issues it's having by removing them from their current pots. In doing so I noticed that the plug he used was wrapped in moist dirt, and then around most soil that has never become dry since there was a barrier. I ripped this barrier off and planted in newly prepared dry soil. 1 pseudostem clearly had severe stem rot, the brownest one in the pictures, and I believe it is dead now but I'll continue to try. The second one that has no curve to it had what looked like the start of stem rot, but it still looked healthy enough tissue to be saved, but we shall see. The third most healthy looking one that is curved, was green all the way down to the roots, so I'm hopeful about this one. I repotted them in 4inch pots and added no water so it could suck the water out of the stupid crap he put around the roots that is likely to have caused all the issues. I thought I broke it up enough before planting without realizing he had netting underneath the outer soil that kept it compacted and moist. I also mixed 1 tbsp of 3% hydrogen perodixe with 1 cup of water and put a tiny bit in each of the 3 pots so as not to add too much water but add some oxygen to the soil and kill off any fungus or bacteria. I was careful to not get any on the pseduostem of any of the plants. I then mixed 1tsp of 3% hydrogen peroxide in a spray bottle with 1 cup of water and misted the outside of the pseduostems, especially at the part on the 2 that had stem rot or the beginnings of it, which are now above the soil instead of in it, to hopefully kill away the fungus causing the rot. The third just in case since they were all in close proximity and it could use the extra oxygen. We shall see what this does. I'm hoping I can at least save the one that looks hopeful and then I'll be ok. This has all become an experiment at this point, so we shall see what happens. Thank you for the info, and I just wanted to update everyone else on the steps I've taken to try and correct the issue. Please let me know if anyone has anymore suggestions. Or if you think this is a lost cause. I'm so sad right now.