gautam
11-16-2010, 11:04 PM
Hi friends!
Long time lurker. Was prompted by message to introduce myself. Native to Nadia district, West Bengal, India. It is part of the moribund Ganga flood plain & lies beneath the meteorological phenomenon called the Monsoon Trough, a variable zone of descending air currents that gives rise to frequent drought and interrupted rain [hard on crops e.g. rice, sugarcane with sigmoid growth curves & sensitive phenological "windows"]. This region originally depended on perennials like bananas, Phoenix sylvestris [the sugar date palm], semi-perennial aroids like Alocasia & Colocasia [center of origin & domestication] plus a variety of rices from several breeding groups, to maintain stable agro-ecosystems. That has undergone negative changes since 1757 to the present.
Growing up amidst the extraordinary turmoil and agricultural reverses of the early 60s made one determined to understand plants and the ecosytems they controlled. That has led one to a career in plant physiology and membrane biology. However, my major interest lies in the 2 significant saviors of my childhood, the landraces of banana in Bengal and Phoenix sylvestris.
You all know the role of the SINGLE wild diploid AA landrace (M. acuminata ssp.burmannoides) from Bengal, Calcutta-4, in helping solve many disease problems of the plantain [AAB] growing regions of Africa. Likewise, I have been fascinated with a similar landrace that is treasured in our area, and is simply known as BIJOO i.e. SEEDY. The plant is massive and thick.Every part is valued in the peasant economy. I have NEVER ever seen anything, let alone any of the many other varieties of banana grown in those districts, shrug off such utter neglect & horrid soils with such ease. Growing in the worst swell-shrink clays, abutting seasonally flooded ditches, year after year the clumps not just persist but increase.
HOW? I am not a wide-eyed flower child, playing at “forest arming” or some new-fangled magic. Root membranes and nutritional genetics, biochemistry, and endophytes is what I do.I still cannot understand the energy balance & water relations of its massive girth and rude good health. Contiguous plantains, Kanthali [Pisang Awak, drought hardy type] & other bananas are puny by comparison. So what gives? As you might guess, there are no research funds for peasant crops!!
Yet, this banana is vital to so many subsistence farmers. The UOPENED flower is the most treasured vegetable in the Calcutta markets: it is called the GARBHA MOCHA, or womb flower. Likewise, the peduncle or the blanched white flower stalk running the length of pseudostem is especially prized in this variety for its massive thickness as well as extreme tenderness. The next most prized is from the race KANTHALI, but there one waits for the fruiting bunch to form. Thus, the remnant florets are small, and the flower stalk far more advanced in age and stringier, than this voluptuous product.
The leaves are proportionately huge and therefore more prized for the traditional use as food plates in orthodox celebrations and ritual worship. This use will never decrease and demand only outstrips supply. The same may be said of the inner, supple stem sheaths. The outermost dry leaf and stems comprise the preferred cordage and ligatures for a number of special usages, whose demands are open ended. Anything else is fodder.
Sword suckers or other older suckers of this most prolific variety have a very profitable use: they are used for ritual welcome objects, like cornstalks at Thanksgiving, except this is used year-round. Special days see heavy demand. It is not possible to sacrifice sweet banana suckers, which also do not grow up at the correct times nor grow large enough. Therefore, this race has to be the B-52 of the banana world.
This SEEDY race is very culture-specific for its value-added dimensions. As land prices rise around Bengal, the value of all of its many edible plus ritual products combined is sure to rise. HOWEVER, given its sturdy disease free nature, there should be more attention devoted to it, even if it is just for the global banana industry under PROMUSA or a similar mandate. This race is not quite the wild AA race. There is so much genetic erosion taking place in Bengal that there should be a serious attempt to collect the best clones that have been preserved by locals.
Would be happy to learn from others with more knowledge of this race & cv.KANTHALI. Especially eager to learn about dwarfing forms of Pisang Awak types, work being done with Kanthali, root & yield QTLS, sugar & DRY Mass per unit area of land or leaf.
Thank you very much.
Long time lurker. Was prompted by message to introduce myself. Native to Nadia district, West Bengal, India. It is part of the moribund Ganga flood plain & lies beneath the meteorological phenomenon called the Monsoon Trough, a variable zone of descending air currents that gives rise to frequent drought and interrupted rain [hard on crops e.g. rice, sugarcane with sigmoid growth curves & sensitive phenological "windows"]. This region originally depended on perennials like bananas, Phoenix sylvestris [the sugar date palm], semi-perennial aroids like Alocasia & Colocasia [center of origin & domestication] plus a variety of rices from several breeding groups, to maintain stable agro-ecosystems. That has undergone negative changes since 1757 to the present.
Growing up amidst the extraordinary turmoil and agricultural reverses of the early 60s made one determined to understand plants and the ecosytems they controlled. That has led one to a career in plant physiology and membrane biology. However, my major interest lies in the 2 significant saviors of my childhood, the landraces of banana in Bengal and Phoenix sylvestris.
You all know the role of the SINGLE wild diploid AA landrace (M. acuminata ssp.burmannoides) from Bengal, Calcutta-4, in helping solve many disease problems of the plantain [AAB] growing regions of Africa. Likewise, I have been fascinated with a similar landrace that is treasured in our area, and is simply known as BIJOO i.e. SEEDY. The plant is massive and thick.Every part is valued in the peasant economy. I have NEVER ever seen anything, let alone any of the many other varieties of banana grown in those districts, shrug off such utter neglect & horrid soils with such ease. Growing in the worst swell-shrink clays, abutting seasonally flooded ditches, year after year the clumps not just persist but increase.
HOW? I am not a wide-eyed flower child, playing at “forest arming” or some new-fangled magic. Root membranes and nutritional genetics, biochemistry, and endophytes is what I do.I still cannot understand the energy balance & water relations of its massive girth and rude good health. Contiguous plantains, Kanthali [Pisang Awak, drought hardy type] & other bananas are puny by comparison. So what gives? As you might guess, there are no research funds for peasant crops!!
Yet, this banana is vital to so many subsistence farmers. The UOPENED flower is the most treasured vegetable in the Calcutta markets: it is called the GARBHA MOCHA, or womb flower. Likewise, the peduncle or the blanched white flower stalk running the length of pseudostem is especially prized in this variety for its massive thickness as well as extreme tenderness. The next most prized is from the race KANTHALI, but there one waits for the fruiting bunch to form. Thus, the remnant florets are small, and the flower stalk far more advanced in age and stringier, than this voluptuous product.
The leaves are proportionately huge and therefore more prized for the traditional use as food plates in orthodox celebrations and ritual worship. This use will never decrease and demand only outstrips supply. The same may be said of the inner, supple stem sheaths. The outermost dry leaf and stems comprise the preferred cordage and ligatures for a number of special usages, whose demands are open ended. Anything else is fodder.
Sword suckers or other older suckers of this most prolific variety have a very profitable use: they are used for ritual welcome objects, like cornstalks at Thanksgiving, except this is used year-round. Special days see heavy demand. It is not possible to sacrifice sweet banana suckers, which also do not grow up at the correct times nor grow large enough. Therefore, this race has to be the B-52 of the banana world.
This SEEDY race is very culture-specific for its value-added dimensions. As land prices rise around Bengal, the value of all of its many edible plus ritual products combined is sure to rise. HOWEVER, given its sturdy disease free nature, there should be more attention devoted to it, even if it is just for the global banana industry under PROMUSA or a similar mandate. This race is not quite the wild AA race. There is so much genetic erosion taking place in Bengal that there should be a serious attempt to collect the best clones that have been preserved by locals.
Would be happy to learn from others with more knowledge of this race & cv.KANTHALI. Especially eager to learn about dwarfing forms of Pisang Awak types, work being done with Kanthali, root & yield QTLS, sugar & DRY Mass per unit area of land or leaf.
Thank you very much.