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View Full Version : Hardy subacid-type banana?


Pancrazio
04-03-2016, 07:53 PM
Here in Italy you find in grocery store one and just one type of banana: cavendish.
If you want something else, you have got to grow it yourself.
I have heard wonders of the subacid type bananas; so I got myself a Goldfinger. I my understanding it is subacid and a good candidate for home growing. It also looked promising; it was said to be one of the most cold hardy among the FHIA hybrids. Also, very productive, stout, and generally effortless banana.

Well, last time i have been disappointed so much by a plant growing experience, i was attempting to grow blueberries under the hot Tuscan summer on alkaline clay soil;
That plant just hate me, my place, my climate or my way of growing it (or maybe all of those altogether).
However after seeing it becoming smaller and smaller as time goes by (last three year have been awful) i finally have decided to get rid of it.

But while the banana has to go, the idea of growing a subacid type is still here. So... what i can find to substitute it?
I need a subacid type banana which is:
1) Very cold hardy (at very least hardier than goldfinger)
2) Manageable (i can take care of bigger plants, but i can't bring indoor bigger plants; so if it is bigger it has to be even hardier because it won't be put indoor)
3) Relatively fast ripening.

Am i asking too much from a single cultivar? Do you have any suggestion? Keep in mind that i already have dwarf namwah and... well, it isn't subacid. And i would love to limit the choice to subacid type (apple bananas).

crazy banana
04-03-2016, 08:37 PM
Maybe you want to try a dwarf Brazilian then. Mine is growing in a marginal spot, the taste is like apple banana (some people say it is apple banana) and it is small enough for either taking it out of the ground in the winter or to easily wrap in a cozy frost cloth for protection.

Pancrazio
04-04-2016, 05:02 AM
Dwarf brazialian is a good suggestion and i have heard that it's very cold hardy. I have an arragment with a guy that should give me a pup.
Too bad it isn't a FHIA cloone, but i suppose i can't get everything.