Matt in SD

OK,
I'm sure this has been discussed here before because everyone is talks about them. When Tony (Sunfish) came by my place he told me about sword suckers and it was the first I'd heard anything about it (been growing bananas for 5 years now). So what is the obsession with "sword sucker"? Of the 20 or so varieties of bananas I grow, nearly all of the pups on all of them come out with at least a few sword leaves. Some keep them longer than others. But I've cut hundreds of suckers off of more than 20 varieties of bananas and they pretty much all live and they pretty much all grow ridiculously fast if you put them in the ground in loose soil.

I have to admit there is one interesting observation I've made that does seem to support the sword sucker superiority, and that is that my 'golden pillow' banana is the only variety that usually produces sucker that start with REALLY small broad (not sword) leaves. And this is the only variety that I've lost significant numbers of suckers after moving. BUT, if I move them when they're bigger (3 feet or so) they're fine, whether they were sword or not.

Also, I've found that if a sucker has to be a certain size before it's ready to remove, AND they tend to suffer less setback if you remove them when they still have sword leaves, not broad/adult leaves. So I could deduce that you could have a larger sucker that will adjust quicker after division if it's grown larger while still maintaining sword leaves. But again, the "setback" from division is usually long gone in less then 6-8 weeks, even with non-sword suckers...so is this really important?

Basically I'm open to believing there is a difference in viability and growth rate for sword suckers, but from what I've seen, bananas grow so fast that it doesn't really seem like something to spend much time worrying about.

Please shower me with your tales of sword sucker superiority, scientific or otherwise. I'll start paying more attention too and seeing if I can see a big difference.

Matt