View Full Version : Tips for knowing when a banana plant is close to flowering?
M24rink
07-12-2014, 02:10 AM
Hi there! I'm a newbie at this but love Bananas and can't wait for my plant to flower. I bought a California Gold pup from Jeff Earl in Modesto last spring and was wondering if anyone can give me any tips on how to tell when it is getting close to flowering. The leaves died last winter but came back strong this spring. I'm getting worried though that it's going to flower right before winter and I won't have time to let the fruit ripen before the freezes come. I've included a picture of my Cali Gold. Thanks in advance!
2425
JCA433
07-12-2014, 12:51 PM
A banana plant will flower after a certain number of leaves appear or height of the P stem. I am recording data now with reference to the number of leaves and height before inflorescence. I am not growing Cali Gold however. For my banana plants, my first Namwa banana grow about 40 leaves and grow to near 130 inches height before inflorescence the second grew about 38 leaves and grew to 128 inches. My Goldfinger grew only 32 leaves and 81 inches height before inflorescence. It does vary with the variety of banana and even the same type can grow more or fewer leaves and be shorter or taller.
Right before the flower a flag leaf will appear. The flag leaf is much smaller than the leaves before it. Before the flag leaf a smaller leaf about half the size of mature leaves will sometimes appear. When the stem gets closer to maturity the P Stem height increases less with each new leaf.
Abnshrek
07-12-2014, 01:43 PM
Cg will fruit from 6-6 1/2' of stem for me.. :v)
M24rink
07-12-2014, 03:10 PM
Awesome, thanks for the tips!
Do you think a banana plant will need to grow more leaves than normal if it lost some of its leaves from the frost or does that not really affect it?
Worm_Farmer
07-12-2014, 03:20 PM
I find the plant will usualy start to lean, and or more more pups.
Sometimes there will be a bulge slowley moving up.
The base of one starts to get real thick.
About the same height hat it flowered at last year.
New growth stats to bunch up closer vs spread out far.
Sometimes it can just all around be hard to tell. A lot of times I completly miss the Flag leaf and all other signs.
Worm_Farmer
07-12-2014, 03:22 PM
More times than not, I find my self pointing and going "Hey Look! A flower!"
JCA433
07-12-2014, 07:21 PM
Awesome, thanks for the tips!
Do you think a banana plant will need to grow more leaves than normal if it lost some of its leaves from the frost or does that not really affect it?
My banana plants have never suffered frost damage so I am not sure. The number of leaves is not always reliable way to determine if inflorescence is near. For example, I have a Namwa pup that has grown 18 leaves so far and it is already 100 inches tall. Another Namwa pup has grown 22 leaves and is only 91 inches tall. The taller Namwa pup was cut at least once so maybe it is taller because it had more developed roots and allowed taller growth. It also has thicker stem. The taller Namwa pup also started growing leaves later because it was cut. The Namwa 100 inches tall grew from ground level starting 2/16/2014 and the one 91 inches tall 01/06/2014. Sometimes maybe bananas flower when they feel like it!
I am recording the number of leaves and height of every banana stem in my yard.
Nancy
07-12-2014, 07:35 PM
I don't have California Gold, but all of my other bananas let me know a flower is coming a couple of leaves in advance: the leaves get distinctly shorter, even before the flag leaf emerges. For whatever it's worth, I've had good luck ripening bananas in my garage -- but of course they have to reach maturity before I cut them down. I hope the frost will wait for you!
M24rink
07-13-2014, 11:34 AM
It appears to me that my p-stem is becoming height stagnant (about 6' tall) and the leaves are bunching up. I haven't been keeping track of the number of leaves but if I had to guess I'd say it has produced around 35-40 so I guess all signs are a plus that I'm getting close. I'll update everyone in a couple of weeks and let you know if the flower has arrived or not. I can't wait for some home grown nanas!!!
M24rink
05-03-2015, 06:57 PM
So I finally have the emergence of my pre flag and flag leaf but since I had to go through another winter and lose all of my leaves I only have four leaves not including the flag leaves. Anyone know if I'll have enough leaves to produce full bananas? I'm going to be super bummed if I waited all this time and I don't have enough leaves now
pitangadiego
05-03-2015, 11:30 PM
At this point it will be what it will be. You cannot alter the trajectory of what your plant will do, other than proper watering and fertilization.
I don't know if fruit was harvested or not but check out the photo in this thread. http://www.bananas.org/f311/cutting-pseudo-stem-reduce-height-indoor-21330.html
M24rink
05-04-2015, 01:15 AM
Very true, fingers crossed, thanks! For anyone out there that has California Gold mine just flowered at 6'10". I'm going to keep track of future stems to see if they are pretty consistent at this height. Also, just an FYI but my first stem had to endure two winters before finally flowering. I only note this because I don't know if it affects the height or leaf production at all.
M24rink
05-04-2015, 01:40 AM
Thanks for the info Kat2! That's an interesting thread. I wonder if they did get any edible fruit aftr cutting the stems like that.
I was just wondering if anyone on here knew what typically is the minimum leaves needed to produce full set bananas. Maybe I'm totally off base here but I'm hoping for future stems I can try and use my fertilizer and water to either speed up or slow down my plants growth to try and avoid this "lack of leaves" issue in the future. If I can successfully predict how many leaves are left to emerge before flowering (based on leaf counting and height tracking) I think I can get my banana to have at least the minimum number of leaves for the spring when the flower is due to emerge.
PR-Giants
05-04-2015, 07:21 AM
At this point it will be what it will be. You cannot alter the trajectory of what your plant will do, other than proper watering and fertilization.
If you do nothing to alter the trajectory of what your plant will do, you cannot alter the trajectory of what your plant will do.
Maybe bunch pruning could improve how the remaining fruit will fill?
Leaf area effects the fruit in many ways, filling and the onset of ripening are just two.
There are many interesting papers written on this topic.
PR-Giants
05-04-2015, 07:23 AM
I don't know if fruit was harvested or not but check out the photo in this thread. http://www.bananas.org/f311/cutting-pseudo-stem-reduce-height-indoor-21330.html
The fruit did not grow any larger and rotted after that photo was taken.
If you're in the pickled baby banana business... chop...chop.
venturabananas
05-05-2015, 01:49 AM
Anyone know if I'll have enough leaves to produce full bananas?
If you can keep some leaves alive the whole time the bunch hangs, I bet you'll get some filled out bananas. I've had bunches that filled that started with only maybe 4-5 leaves and ended with 0-1. I'm sure they would have done better with more leaves, but I still got edible fruit.
PR Giants' suggestion of bunch pruning is a good one if the bunch has a lot of fingers.
PR-Giants
05-05-2015, 09:07 AM
If you can keep some leaves alive the whole time the bunch hangs, I bet you'll get some filled out bananas. I've had bunches that filled that started with only maybe 4-5 leaves and ended with 0-1. I'm sure they would have done better with more leaves, but I still got edible fruit.
venturabananas brings up a good point, even though plants with 4-5 leaves are routinely discarded upon flowering because of premature ripening and overall low quality, they are still edible as well as the peduncle, corm, and male bud....buen provecho :08:
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