Originally Posted by maesy

Jack,
I always mix the planting hole with sand, gravel and rotted compost before I plant the bananas. To warm up the soil as you suggest and use black plastic foil is a good idea, but only gives you an advantage, when also the air temperature is at a minimum of 12 - 15 degrees Celsius.
According to the d.orinoco, more than once I have planted bolt corms in pots and into the ground, and it always takes months for them to get going. That's why I started to try something out that isn't disturbing the root system as much as digging them out and force them every year again to start rooting from the beginning. The iron basket has only small holes, just big enough for the roots to grow through. I tried it last year with musa FHIA-18 and musa sp.yangtse. And it worked. But the FHIA-18 rot in my garage. This one needs a warm winter place like a living room or warm greenhouse.
My first thought was also the kind of bag we use for potatoes. But after a half a year in the ground, that probably has also rotted to 50%.

Marcel

When I read in your Musa 'Pahari Kela' report, I can see, that your average daytime and night time temperature are at least two to three degrees warmer than ours.
And that is a big different!
Unfortunately we don't have that many warm summer nights, that make the bananas grow like crazy! This summer we had only two or maybe three nights with at least 20 degrees.