Quote:
Originally Posted by lorax
Jack, I'm 27. Not too forward at all, of course - I'm not a "lady" nor am I easily offended, so it's not a problem to ask.
A mature 'Improved GM' plant is between 3-4 meters tall (pseudostem 3/leaf tips 4), extremely sturdy - the pstem is quite thick, and a bunch normally bears between 5 and 8 hands, with a hand being 10-12 bananas. Multiply that out, with each finger averaging 500g, and you're looking at 25 kg on the small side, and 42 kg on the heavy side, not including the infrutescence and its weight, which, filled with sap as they are when you harvest, adds about another kilo or two. Average raceme stem girth is 25 cm. It's the kind of fruit that props were designed for; I use PVC or bamboo support struts. Harvesters of the GMs here are quite burly men, and they work in teams of 2 - one to cut the bunch and the second to catch it, and then both of them to carry it.
As for your greenhouse - you get sunny winters in Slovakia, no? You can tune your greenhouses to use that to your advantage. Talk to me about it; I used to heat my greenhouse and home in that manner, and I was from Northern Canada, at a latitude similar to Russia's Gulag Peninsula.
|
My region in Slovakia is according to Koppen clasifiaction: Dfa, meaning continental climate with no dry season and hot summers.
This small part there, about no dry season means, that our winters are way too wet/snowy. I rains/snows quite often and teh ratio of sunny days to rainy/snowy is 1:1, thus meaning, that a good part of my winter I wouldn't have my greenhouse heated up. The most I hate, when itsnows and the day is so hot (3 or 4°C), that the snow just melts down. And then in the night, it snows again. And then a sudden Russian front comes and yeah, no snow to protect, but frosts of -12°C. Last year -13°C. Perfect.
The temps in WELL constructed greenhouse here rarely fall below 4°C (or very very very rarely, I don't think that the frost here in greenhouse is possible, in our northern parts yes, but not here, that would have to be a hell of a winter. Trachycarpus grows hee without protection for comparison
), but I think that the construction should be good enough, to push the plants further, 15°C could be the tops I would have in the winter. As the temps gradually Increase in the February, it could even start a vegetation.
But as I said, that wants me to design, program and construct a heat pump of my own. And that is... well... costly. Not in a manner of money, but time. Didn't actaully have time to do that.
