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View Full Version : Raja Puri grown in a wine barrel


bencelest
08-18-2009, 06:29 PM
<a href=http://www.bananas.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=21376><img src=http://www.bananas.org/gallery/watermark.php?file=21376&size=1 border=0></a>

I think I have a flag leaf!
And Winter is coming. But I'll take it.

ewitte
08-18-2009, 06:42 PM
How tall is it? Hope mine gets there early next year. Probably about 4-5ft when winter comes.

hammer
08-18-2009, 07:58 PM
Very nice plant benny how long have you had the plant. my raja puri to stack the leaves on top of one another what size pot is it grown in.

bencelest
08-19-2009, 11:39 AM
How tall is it? Hope mine gets there early next year. Probably about 4-5ft when winter comes.

I measured it this morning and from the ground up to the tip of the p stem is exactly 3 feet and 6 inches. Not too tall at all.

bencelest
08-19-2009, 11:44 AM
Very nice plant benny how long have you had the plant. my raja puri to stack the leaves on top of one another what size pot is it grown in.

I looked at the tag and it says I planted it as a pup on 5/8/07. You have to remember that here in my area bananas don't grow all year round. On winter times we have a lot of temperature below 54 degrees the crucial tempt when bananas stop growing completely.
The wine barrel is 31 gallons. It has 2 pups now one is almost as tall as the mamma.

bencelest
08-19-2009, 11:55 AM
Here are 2 pictures I took this morning

<a href=http://www.bananas.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=21393><img src=http://www.bananas.org/gallery/watermark.php?file=21393&size=1 border=0></a>


<a href=http://www.bananas.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=21392><img src=http://www.bananas.org/gallery/watermark.php?file=21392&size=1 border=0></a>

sunfish
08-19-2009, 12:05 PM
Benny isn't that pretty short to have a flag leaf already ? My RP is at 4ft. and planted about the same time as yours with no sign of a flag leaf.

sbl
08-19-2009, 12:39 PM
Congrats Benny! Mine bloomed at 4 ft 4 inches in a little less than 2 yrs. The first pup is now 4 ft, but no flag.

bencelest
08-19-2009, 01:02 PM
Ha-ha-ha. You guys are making me smile because I KNOW bananas just as much as you do. This is my first time a RP bore a flower for me. I actually did not expect anything until I saw 2 days ago this banana appeared weird looking and sure enough I saw a sign of a flag leaf. The only bananas that I harvested so far are the dwarf Brazilian and 2 times the California Gold.
At least I know that the RJ can be grown in pots and have a flower.
I don't expect too many fingers on this banana because the pstem is rather small. So Tony you may have a lot more bananas to harvest than me.
And the same to you SBL you will have more bananas to eat than me.
To me those bananas have a mind of their own. They will bear fruit when they feel like it (lol)

sunfish
08-19-2009, 01:14 PM
I am sure you know more about bananas than I do.

sbl
08-19-2009, 01:55 PM
You're way ahead of me to Benny, this is my first yr getting bananas to bloom, I had 2 Orinocos bloom (one had 3 hands/18 fingers the other has 3 hands/15 fingers. My RP has got 6 hands/59 fingers, but they are smaller than the Orinocos.

ewitte
08-19-2009, 01:56 PM
Holy cow about as tall as mine in the 45gal smartpot. Hopefully everything holds out until the spring or we have a delayed winter. Sometimes up until Christmas there are still days up to the high 80's or even 90's.

sbl
08-19-2009, 09:28 PM
Mine is growing in a pot that is probably about 15 gal, the pup that is 4 ft is in a pot that is not much more than 5 gal--I was going to move it up to the big pot when "Mama" finishes with the big pot.

mike
08-19-2009, 09:53 PM
My RP has a little over five feet of p stem no flower. I have no flowers on anything BOOHOO. Everything will flower in another month or so and then die. Well that is enough self pity congrats Bencelest on getting a flower

bencelest
08-19-2009, 11:13 PM
Hey, guys, all we can do is experiment with what we have. While doing it is the fun of it all. If we got them to flower that's the ultimate. If we don't then let's wait some more. You know, I have many large bananas before and for about 2 years none of them flowered, not one of them. And they were very large and healthy. And a friend from the Philippines came over and I told him my problem and he told me maybe they were abaca a kind of banana that don't flower. And I believed him so I cut all of them down and planted something I ordered from Ebay and from Florida.
To this day I 've been kicking my butt why I did that. I should have waited some more months because none of my bananas that I ordered flowered for less than 2 years. My old bananas probably were about ready to flower when I cut them down.
But that was before I discovered this wonderful forum.

Benny

enigma99a
08-19-2009, 11:49 PM
Congrats, I am jealous. All of mine keep putting out huge leafs, trying to get record pstem height before a flower I guess:)

sbl
08-20-2009, 10:32 AM
My RP has a little over five feet of p stem no flower. I have no flowers on anything BOOHOO. Everything will flower in another month or so and then die. Well that is enough self pity congrats Bencelest on getting a flower

Don't give up Mike! It is always a challange to get a banana thru the winter, but I learned a few things over the last yr. If you cannot move it inside for winter, there are some other things that will help. First wrapping the stem with anything to insulate it will reduce damage and may get the stem thru the winter. If the stem does not survive the winter, don't cut it back very much--leave as much of the stem intact as possible--what is left in the stem will help the daughter grow much faster.

I had a large stem that did not make it thru the winter (right next to one I wrapped that did make it)--the daughter was only half as tall as the one that made it, now it is taller and has almost twice as many leaves as the large one that made it.

bencelest
08-20-2009, 10:48 AM
sbl: You said it right. That's what I am going to do this winter. Before, I let them struggle for themselves but I think this time I am going to cut all their leaves and wrap the pstem with any insulator I have on hand and wrap them with plastic and on top I will put a large trash can liner to keep the water out.
And see what happens. This is just for the less hardy ones I have.
Also if the pstem does not make it I found out that the corm normally is intact and fresh and ready to pup when the whether gets warmer. But with insulation I think they will make it through the winter.

sbl
08-20-2009, 10:55 AM
I don't cut the leaves, I just bend them down and use them for insulation--then I cut them in the spring.

bencelest
08-20-2009, 11:24 AM
At first thought that's what I wanted to do but don't they have water that might harm the pstem? Did you do this before and it worked?

sbl
08-20-2009, 12:05 PM
I did that with both of the Orinocos that I wrapped last fall--the material I wrapped with was pourous (landscape cloth) and the leaves dried our pretty quick. We got down in the mid 20s several times last winter.

bencelest
08-20-2009, 12:22 PM
OK Thanks. I'll do as you mentioned. Thanks for the info.

mike
08-20-2009, 02:00 PM
Sbl I tried for the first time last year digging and storing most of my banana plants in the garage. This took me and my son about two entire days. My poor son. Very large plants. My plants tend to flower late in the season. So me being the genius that I am I decided to dig them early and store them and then enjoy a yard full of nanas. Well after uncovering them this spring I found that five of the plants had flowered in the garage. I did not know this could happen with no roots and no leaves but know I do. What makes it bad is that I have not tried any of the fruit from theses plants before one being RP. I got pups from them all and they are all growing good but instead of getting a couple of plants to fruit I have none. I expect this will be the case this year also. I want dig them again. I found that they get started a lot quicker when left in the ground. Some of my large plants die over the winter because the fruit is in the stem but other then that I have no problems here. I found that a temporary shelter build over my in ground plants works best for me if I can get the shelter to last all winter. All I can do is continue to try different methods read what other members are doing and cross my fingers. I enjoy a challenge but for know I am losing lol.

sbl
08-20-2009, 02:40 PM
2 yrs ago I dug several of my largest Orinocos and stored them in my shop. When I went to plant them in the spring, they were much lighter and it took a long time for them to start growing. So, last fall, instead of digging, I decided to wrap a couple and see if that could get them thru the winter. I pulled the leaves down round the stem and wrapped the stems with landscape cloth and would cover the top with dog food bags when we had freezes. Both of the stems I covered made it thru without dying. One of them has bloomed.


I had 2 other stems about the same size, one was protected by a tree canopy--it made it and was the first to start growing and it bloomed in June. The other one did not make it, but I did not cut it down--I cut about 1 ft of the stem off to see if I could restart it, but no. There was a daughter about half size and it started growing really fast--it is now larger than the one I protected. If they do not bloom soon, I'm sure they will next spring--if they do, I will be experimenting with ways to get the bloom thru the winter.

My RP is in a container I could put in the shop when it was cold--it never lost a leaf to cold and bloomed in July.

ewitte
08-20-2009, 02:56 PM
I will have to try that! I was going to stake about 1ft away from the pstem and fill with something for insulation. Can not move my smart pots did not put anything under them and besides hear 45 and 65gal can get kinda heavy ;)

bencelest
08-20-2009, 05:28 PM
I bought a California Gold with bloom around September perhaps 4 years ago. I did not know what I was doing but willing to experiment. I did not know this forum then. Anyway what I did was put Christmas lights under the fruit (By January the blooms turned to fruit) I wrapped the pstem also with Christmas lights and then with burlap and then with clear plastics. I also put Christmas lights on top of the soil and black plastic to retain heat. What was left of the Christmas lights I wrapped it around part of the leaves after I tied all the leaves like a spear.
What I found out when I opened everything in the spring, the leaves that were wrapped with Christmas lights were still green and the fruits were green also. But the leaves that were not wrapped with Christmas lights were all browned and crispy. Although I lost 3/4 of the leaves I was able to harvest the fruit since Joe Real advised me that the pstem contributes to photosynthesis of the plant if I expose the green part.

sbl
08-20-2009, 05:56 PM
Sounds like a great idea Benny!

jjjankovsky
08-20-2009, 06:55 PM
wow...with all due respect...and i repeat, with all due respect...

anything you folk are doing to coax a tropical plant into production could be solved by moving to the tropics!!:waving:

i'm wondering as i wander around this site if there is a spot where folk chat that aren't trying to perform miracles!?

seriously, i applaud your efforts, and hope safeway never runs out of your favorite fruit...but...please...where on this board is it talking about bananas that grow where they are supposed to? (it's a big and complex site to navigate and i got hit in the head by a bunch of ripe fruit...)

:ha:

Steven Valys
08-20-2009, 07:12 PM
i'm wondering as i wander around this site if there is a spot where folk chat that aren't trying to perform miracles!?



We're not trying to perform miracles, we are simply expressing our creativity to induce the unnatural. I hope to have fresh bananas at some point here in Connecticut. :ha:

jjjankovsky
08-20-2009, 07:22 PM
"We're not trying to perform miracles, we are simply expressing our creativity to induce the unnatural"

go get 'um, tiger...but, is there a place ( haven't found yet) where folk in bananaland talk?...like folk who grow as a regular event, not as an oddity?

bear with me...i'm new and dumb...

BTW, i'm up to six varieties on my little fruit ranch in mexico...3 have fruited and are spreading around,...the others are new

peace and love, baby!

ewitte
08-20-2009, 07:35 PM
Miracles are those people in zone 4-6 its not really all that bad in 8-9 just a little extra push for those rare nights where the temperatures drop.

Patty in Wisc
08-20-2009, 09:04 PM
We have people on here from Malaysia where bananas grow on the side of roads - like weeds. Also, from Equador, Dominican Republic etc. It's not a real challenge to grow them there. By me, it's a real challenge to get one to fruit!!! But I like challenges:)

LilRaverBoi
08-21-2009, 01:07 AM
Yeah, who said only those who live in the tropics get to grow their own fresh bananas!? I'm more in it for the foliage than the fruit, to be honest....but I'm with Patty...I do enjoy a good challenge!

sunfish
09-09-2009, 03:57 PM
Benny isn't that pretty short to have a flag leaf already ? My RP is at 4ft. and planted about the same time as yours with no sign of a flag leaf.

I guess it isn't that short. Here is mine with a flag leaf at 4'4". It did spend half it's live in a container.


http://www.bananas.org/gallery/watermark.php?file=22698&size=1 (http://www.bananas.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=22698&ppuser=2868)

bencelest
09-09-2009, 04:01 PM
I guess it isn't that short. Here is mine with a flag leaf at 4'4". It did spend half it's live in a container.


http://www.bananas.org/gallery/watermark.php?file=22698&size=1 (http://www.bananas.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=22698&ppuser=2868)

Yeah! Wow Tony. Congrats!!!!:woohoonaner:

bencelest
09-09-2009, 04:03 PM
And here's mine as of 9/7/09

http://www.bananas.org/gallery/watermark.php?file=22621&size=1 (http://www.bananas.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=22621)

sunfish
09-09-2009, 04:04 PM
Thanks Benny

austinl01
09-16-2009, 07:32 PM
Awesome! I'm glad to hear it is blooming at such a short height. It gives me hope for next year since mine are approaching 5 feet total height. Only if I can overwinter them successfully...