View Full Version : is mussa nagensium eatable?
brycast!
05-03-2010, 09:43 PM
i have bin able to grow some mussa nagensiums
from seed,but i am not sure if the fruit is eatable...
will some one let me know please. thanks...
Gabe15
05-03-2010, 10:43 PM
This is a wild species, the fruit (if you are able to get it to flower and hand pollinate it) will be full of seeds with very little pulp. In the banana world it would not be considered an "edible" banana, though you could technically eat them. As a general rule, you cannot grow edible bananas from seed, any banana grown from seed will have fruit with seeds in it and thus not be edible. All edible types of banana plants must be from vegetative divisions from a larger plant, often called "pups" or "suckers", or a tissue cultured plant.
brycast!
05-05-2010, 05:18 PM
ooooow. ok.... thanks for the info! so u say this plant is hard too flower hu? is it tricky to hand pollinate this plant?
LilRaverBoi
05-05-2010, 10:34 PM
Technically seeded banana plants are considered 'inedible' even though you could eat around the seeds carefully (and I don't guarantee a quality flavor). Pollination of 'edible' varieties is not necessary since they tend to have infertile male and/or female flowers. Pollination of seeded varieties is not typically necessary since bugs accomplish this normally, but if you really want seeds to propagate or want to cross-pollinate a few species, you can do so yourself, also.
brycast!
05-06-2010, 06:26 PM
and how exactly can i do this? i may try to cross pollinate this plant.. experiment a little and see what happens....
Gabe15
05-06-2010, 06:46 PM
Unless you are growing it in the ground in a place with year-round growing conditions, it will be difficult to get it to flower (this is because bananas are tropical plants, and the further you take them beyond the tropics, the harder it will be to grow them).
Since bananas only generally make either female or male flowers at any one time during flowering, you will need multiple plants flowering at the same time, but at different stages in order to have pollen ready to go. M. nagensium is a rather tall plant, so physically getting up there (could be about 20ft or so) to hand pollinate can be a challenge, given that you can even get these plants to grow large and flower. Sometimes, depending on the species and where it is growing, seeded bananas can be pollinated by a non-natural (out of its native habitat) pollinator, but it is anyone's guess of whether or not this could happen wherever you are growing them, and of course this still assumes you can get multiple plants to flower at the same time.
If you manage to accomplish all of that, when you get fruit, it will not be anywhere near good eating quality, if palatable at all ( I have not had M. nagensium fruit so cannot comment on it). If you want to get fruit, just try growing edible bananas.
brycast!
05-06-2010, 08:18 PM
OK. so this plant would be more of an ornamental plant right? because i am living in the northern part of California and it is not in growing conditions year-round. so don't think i will be able to flower this... or will it flower inside a green house? and what kind of plant do u recommend? (one that will be easy to grow and flower)
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