View Full Version : Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
BullShark
07-30-2009, 04:31 PM
I know you can manage the pups in the mat to produce bananas every year but is there a way to arrange things so you can have plants ripening bananas at different times of the year? For instance a Spring, Summer and Fall harvest? Planting different types of banana that ripen at different times of the year would be fine by me but as far as I know all bananas pretty much ripen during the same season.
Jack Daw
07-30-2009, 04:35 PM
I know you can manage the pups in the mat to produce bananas every year but is there a way to arrange things so you can have plants ripening bananas at different times of the year? For instance a Spring, Summer and Fall harvest? Planting different types of banana that ripen at different times of the year would be fine by me but as far as I know all bananas pretty much ripen during the same season.
Theoretically, but you would really have to use the darkest magic. Bananas produce, when they are old enough, their fruiting conditions are optimal and they want to fruit.
Other than that it's difficult to "time" them. I will give it a thought and try. ;)
But when you talk about spring harvest, the conditions in winter should be spring or summer like. And that's difficult to achieve. ;)
BullShark
07-30-2009, 04:42 PM
I live in Zone 9a in Florida so our winters aren't too bad but it can still get chilly. It sounds like I'd need an indoor growing area in order to simulate the right conditions. How do they manage to keep ripe bananas in the store all year round? Is it basically because they can source bananas from around the world?
lorax
07-30-2009, 04:53 PM
Well, the big commercial plantations here are "timed" on a grand scale - they're staggered by 100-hectare sections by planting pups of equal ages at various times of the year. (IE, when they plant pups, no matter what time of year it is, the pups are always 6 months old.) This way, each 100-hectare section fruits at a specific time-range and then they cycle them.
kaczercat
07-30-2009, 05:13 PM
very interesting but neat
BullShark
07-30-2009, 05:20 PM
Well, the big commercial plantations here are "timed" on a grand scale - they're staggered by 100-hectare sections by planting pups of equal ages at various times of the year. (IE, when they plant pups, no matter what time of year it is, the pups are always 6 months old.) This way, each 100-hectare section fruits at a specific time-range and then they cycle them.
Ok, that sounds more like what I had in mind. I'm sure it doesn't scale perfectly but I might try something like that on my place. I'm developing an interest in planting an acre or two to bananas to sell to local specialty markets but it would work best if I could provide a small but fairly consistent supply of unusual bananas.
Jack Daw
07-30-2009, 06:10 PM
I live in Zone 9a in Florida so our winters aren't too bad but it can still get chilly. It sounds like I'd need an indoor growing area in order to simulate the right conditions. How do they manage to keep ripe bananas in the store all year round? Is it basically because they can source bananas from around the world?
Regardless the part of USA, where the bananas can be grown, none of those parts is like Ecuador or other tropical countries.
They can afford to time plants, because they don't have winters and if they feed the nanas and irrigate in drier periods, they won't go dormant at all.
Apart from Hawai'i, there's only a very small piece of land in continental USA, particularly in Florida, that could be regarded as "tropical". It is mostly the south-east coast that deserves this classification.
Well, the big commercial plantations here are "timed" on a grand scale - they're staggered by 100-hectare sections by planting pups of equal ages at various times of the year. (IE, when they plant pups, no matter what time of year it is, the pups are always 6 months old.) This way, each 100-hectare section fruits at a specific time-range and then they cycle them.
Ou, Beth, tropical country. :D I know that it works like this on plantains, but the question was in USA. ;)
lorax
07-30-2009, 06:31 PM
Which is why I did qualify the statement with "commercial plantations here" - it's likely not feasable in places with dormant periods for the plants.
BullShark
07-30-2009, 06:44 PM
Drat! I may try anyway, just to see what I get. The actual number of cold days are few and they're rarely all in a row.
ewitte
07-30-2009, 07:08 PM
You could have some success in a place like Florida if your using greenhouses. Technically you can anywhere with a greenhouse but its a lot more painful to heat in places that get really cold.
TommyMacLuckie
07-30-2009, 08:47 PM
Ha. Come to New Orleans - they fruit every month somewhere.
hammer
07-30-2009, 09:49 PM
A greenhouse is a lifesaver but as far as heating last winter i used a woodburnig stove it was hard to reglate the heat . this year i got me 2 17000 btu electric heaters i was having to go in and out of the greenhouse to see if the stove needed wood.
RobG7aChattTN
08-01-2009, 08:52 PM
I manage to get a lot of stuff to survive in my unheated greenhouse up here in 7a. Not anything Musa, of course, since it still gets way below freezing in my greenhouse, but perhaps for you that would be enough. All I use is a poly-tunnel. You'd probably want to cover it only in Dec. and Jan. and you might be surprised how hot it gets (on sunny days you'd have to leave the door wide open). Since you get only very few light freezes and a poly-tunnel will give you all the heat you'd ever need during the day...you might just pull it off. Now, a polly tunnel is cheap, but so are bananas so you might not make money but you might have some fun!
hammer
08-01-2009, 09:08 PM
Very interesting poly tunnel but it would not work for some of banana plants it would get to cold on my prayinghands apple dwarf cavendish super dwarf cavendish if it was just my calf gold an my orinco i would try it.
RobG7aChattTN
08-02-2009, 07:48 AM
In mild winters I've had some pretty amazing results with very tender plants even with big holes in the plastic. Apparently even if your ultimate temperature gets extremely cold, it heats up so much so fast that damage does not occur. I'm not saying that the tender Musa would do well for you in a poly-tunnel for sure, but I really think it would be worth trying. You might even have to cover your Musa Dec. to March, but you might be surprized at the limited damage. I'd really be interested in see what would happen.
Simply Bananas
08-02-2009, 09:42 AM
Where does on get said 'poly tunnel'?
Ohio'sBest
08-02-2009, 10:05 AM
Crop King
CropKing.com - Poly Tunnels | CropKing.com (http://www.cropking.com/tunnels.shtml)
Keep in mind that the tunnel will warm the air but the soil will still freeze depending on your conditions (ie: in NJ that's the case). This could lead to more harm than good. In a climate where the bananas may be marginally p-stem hardy this is a great idea and would be well worth the investment.
Ohio'sBest
08-02-2009, 10:22 AM
Not if you install heating rods in you slab.
Not if you install heating rods in you slab.
True, I was thinking bare or gravel floors.
Ohio'sBest
08-02-2009, 01:33 PM
True, I was thinking bare or gravel floors.
Ouch. That's cold.
BullShark
08-02-2009, 01:35 PM
In a climate where the bananas may be marginally p-stem hardy this is a great idea and would be well worth the investment.
This leads me to a question on bananatomy... the p-stem is essentially made up of leaves but the wide part of most of the leaves seems to fall off leaving only the leaf stems to form the "trunk." So, does that mean if the wide flat part of the leaf dies from cold but the p-stem makes it through ok that the banana can start again from where it left off when things warm up? Or would that re-set its growth cycle somehow?
This leads me to a question on bananatomy... the p-stem is essentially made up of leaves but the wide part of most of the leaves seems to fall off leaving only the leaf stems to form the "trunk." So, does that mean if the wide flat part of the leaf dies from cold but the p-stem makes it through ok that the banana can start again from where it left off when things warm up? Or would that re-set its growth cycle somehow?
You just hit the million dollar question. I believe after watching Scot Nelsons video, not that it covered this, that it does set the plant back somewhat by putting an unatural stress on an otherwise tropical plant that would not experience these temps therefore any dormant period in their native environment. Still it would seem to me better than storing dry in the basement as far as not stting back the flowering mechanism. Then again, do some varieties, say California Gold as opposed to a Gros Michel handle these things better. I'd guess yes. Eventually with good records we can all come to some concensus on this.
BullShark
08-02-2009, 05:16 PM
I've been thinking that perhaps some especially cold hardy bananas could be worked into the rotation to make up for the winter and viente cohol may be part of the solution as well. I am currently growing the following varieties,
-Praying Hands
-Blue Java
-Dwarf Orinoco
-Dwarf Cavendish
-Hua Moa
I know the Hua Moa will probably not like the winter but the others are said to do ok. The variety I think are Dwarf Cavendish have made it through a winter without any cover but I didn't take very good care of them till this year, they were in poor soil and got no water unless it rained, so I don't know really what to expect from them.
I'd like to be able to do this without structures but I have been toying around with a couple ideas for temporary or portable greenhouse type things made from PVC pipe.
Richard
08-02-2009, 05:27 PM
I live in Zone 9a in Florida so our winters aren't too bad but it can still get chilly. ...
I've been thinking that perhaps some especially cold hardy bananas could be worked into the rotation to make up for the winter and viente cohol may be part of the solution as well. I am currently growing the following varieties,
-Praying Hands
-Blue Java
-Dwarf Orinoco
-Dwarf Cavendish
-Hua Moa
Consider adding:
Sweetheart
Dwarf Brazilian
I agree. I had 3 large stems that made it thru the winter with no leaves, 2 have bloomed, one with 18 fingers and one with 15. The stress is probably why I only got these small bunches. One of the ones that bloomed was only protected by an overhanging tree, the other 2 that survived the winter were wrapped with landscape cloth --the pseudostem not the leaves. There was one other large stem that was unprotected, but fully exposed--it did not make it even after being cut back to 1/2.
Bullshark...........off topic but , are you watching "shark week" on discovery channel? Started today.
oh and I'd give Raja Puri a try.
BullShark
08-02-2009, 09:31 PM
I don't get cable/satellite/whatever so I mostly just watch dvd's. I did buy a Shark Week collection one time but it was mostly dramatizations of shark attacks which I don't find especially interesting. As I mentioned a while ago I've had close contact under less than ideal conditions with a couple "maneater" species and was left unharmed so I tend to view such dramatizations as sensationalist entertainment at best or negative propaganda at worst. I'm more into the scientific and what you might term "totemic" aspects of sharks.
I have about 3 more relatively warm months ahead of me but unfortunately I'm short on pups from anything but my Dwarf Cavendishes so I'll have to wait till next year to try timing banana production with pups of different ages. In the meantime I can assess my plants response to our winter and I have planted the corms relatively deep so even the Hua Moa should be in no risk of dying.
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