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plundccre
05-11-2011, 02:32 PM
While I have over 20 varieties of bananas now in my yard, most are immature and have yet to flower, so i am a novice when it comes to the fruit production.

The current exception is my 2 year old Raja Puri which now has what seems to be two distinct types of flowers on it. One is the traditional hanging "hook" type flower that I am accustomed to while the other flower is upright and barely protruding from out from the leaves around it, looking more like a dull, red ginger flower.

My question is does the plant only produce one type of flower on it? Is the upright one deformed or is it something other than the flower that produces the fruit? The upright flower appeared a week or so earlier but is now much smaller than the "hook" flower.

Thanks for your help.

sunfish
05-11-2011, 02:59 PM
While I have over 20 varieties of bananas now in my yard, most are immature and have yet to flower, so i am a novice when it comes to the fruit production.

The current exception is my 2 year old Raja Puri which now has what seems to be two distinct types of flowers on it. One is the traditional hanging "hook" type flower that I am accustomed to while the other flower is upright and barely protruding from out from the leaves around it, looking more like a dull, red ginger flower.

My question is does the plant only produce one type of flower on it? Is the upright one deformed or is it something other than the flower that produces the fruit? The upright flower appeared a week or so earlier but is now much smaller than the "hook" flower.

Thanks for your help.

Is this on one p-stem (trunk) ?

Gabe15
05-11-2011, 03:19 PM
Show us some photos, then we can help better.

plundccre
05-11-2011, 03:50 PM
The flowers are on different trunks. I haven't uploaded photos on this site yet so I hope I am doing it correctly. I uploaded them to the banana flowering gallery.

plundccre
05-11-2011, 04:08 PM
Tried to post the photos to the gallery but I don't know where they went. let me try to attach.

sunfish
05-11-2011, 04:14 PM
That's the flower.Just didn't emerge all the way. I think the cold weather is the cause.


http://www.bananas.org/gallery/watermark.php?file=41024&size=1 (http://www.bananas.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=41024&ppuser=2868)

plundccre
05-11-2011, 04:23 PM
If the one flower did not emerge all the way, is there anything that I could or should do to help it along for fruit production? Should I cut some of the surrounding leaves back?

sunfish
05-11-2011, 04:35 PM
Mine eventually pushed out some.

http://www.bananas.org/f2/good-timing-13310-2.html#post160680

pitangadiego
05-12-2011, 10:35 PM
Welcome to "Choking".

See http://www.bananas.org/f2/fhia-17-choking-pix-1906.html

Skids
05-13-2011, 04:41 AM
Slightly off topic question. What does the flower look like when it first starts to appear? Does it just look like a normal leaf that's about to unfold?

plundccre
05-16-2011, 05:03 PM
Mine is definitely "choking". I took a closer look over the weekend and noticed that most of the lower pars of the flower were starting to rot. I pull them off and can see several layers of bananas still inside the trunk. I cut some of the leaves away to expose a portion of them but there seems to be at least two more layers of bananas inside. To expose them all, I would have to cull most, if not all of the leaves off this particular trunk. Besides looking ugly, am I going to have problems in the bananas developing on this trunk were I to cut the rest of the leaves off? There is another large trunk with "normal" bananas on it as well as 3 smaller drunks on the plant.

sunfish
05-16-2011, 06:07 PM
Slightly off topic question. What does the flower look like when it first starts to appear? Does it just look like a normal leaf that's about to unfold?

Here is a flower bud

http://www.bananas.org/gallery/watermark.php?file=36158&size=1 (http://www.bananas.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=36158&ppuser=2868)