Quote:
Originally Posted by ronke
I applaud all the effort you are putting into saving this banana!  It sounds like those culverts have worked well for you in the past; and admire all your plans for stabilizing it (with water & cables) and attempting to deal with both heat and cold. I am guessing you get a lot of wind where you are. My first banana (Gros Michel!) also fruited just when the weather was clearly getting too cold for ripening (November here) and I was advised to feed it heavily with potassium and keep my fingers crossed. Of course, I live in SoCal so frost is rarely an issue but I still invested in potassium and Xmas lights wrapped around the 2" pvc pipe supporting the bunch and was able to harvest the bananas the following August.
I have little more experience with these guys than Sir Doofus so am reluctant to offer advice. But I agree with both of you that digging up a plant this big at this point would probably be a disaster.
I am currently growing both cacao and yang mei in the ground after starting them in a greenhouse made from 1" pvc pipe and clear plastic. Now they are under 90% shade cloth clipped to the same pvc pipe hauled out to the garden and rebuilt around my plants. I will be switching to 30% come fall and will probably be building something almost as tall as your tower for the cacao (which may well have been a mistake to plant but... chocolate!...how could I not???) Since you already have grown this banana successfully for three years in a greenhouse, I am sort of wondering about just building a temporary one around the IC in the ground, maybe with the same 2" pvc we use for supports.. or even your cleverly weighted down culverts Visual monitoring would be a lot easier. But again the stability in your particular wind/rain conditions could be a bigger issue. |
Thanks for your reply and suggestion of the potassium. This is really my first time using the culvert pipes for my banana tree. I have for the past 10 or so years used these for growing my tomato plants and they work extremely well for many reasons. I can put them outside sooner because the daytime sun warms the water inside the culvert and gives off that heat in the evening/night because our night time temps get below 50. They are also useful to raise the plant above ground level for excellent drainage.
As far as wind, it can get quite windy several times during the winter months so it is really a precaution to assure that it doesn't topple over and take the tree with it.
So in this experiment my hopes are that in the spring when it is removed I will still have all my green leaves pretty much intact and the fruiting can continue thru the summer months.
One of my concerns is mildew of the leaves since they will all be bunched up and in contact with one another in that 24" space toward the top. Humidity is always quite high year round and more so in the winter, so air circulation is going to of great importance. My thoughts are that the Christmas lights will provide circulation from the heat rising from the bottom 1/3 of this tower up through the top and provide all the movement of air needed.