Mudturkle

Is there a spreadsheet that gives characteristics which would help ID banana plants?

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Central Texas Zone 8B and Gulf Coast zone 9B: Raja Puri, Dw. Brazilian, Dw. Orinoco, Dw. NamWah, Dw. Cavendish, Dw. Green?, Dw. Red? Iholena Tigua, Veinte Cohol, Misi Luki, Pisang Raja.

Botanical_Bryce

I wish.

Mudturkle

Well, I have the Kepler & Rust banana book on order. Maybe there is something similar in there. If not, and if no one knows of such a thing, then maybe *we* should start one!

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Central Texas Zone 8B and Gulf Coast zone 9B: Raja Puri, Dw. Brazilian, Dw. Orinoco, Dw. NamWah, Dw. Cavendish, Dw. Green?, Dw. Red? Iholena Tigua, Veinte Cohol, Misi Luki, Pisang Raja.

Botanical_Bryce

For sure. I have so many rare varieties that could really help represent some subgroups

Botanical_Bryce

I'll send photos to anyone wanting to form a duration team

Richard

A treasure trove of information is here:

We be bananas

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Back in business at plantsthatproduce.com

Mudturkle

Yes, I agree that We Be Bananas has a lot of useful information. But do they have a spreadsheet that gives characteristics of each banana that could be used to ID a particular banana? For example, if you knew from the spreadsheet that a given banana has an open leaf petiole and yours doesn't, wouldn't that tell you that yours was a different banana?

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Central Texas Zone 8B and Gulf Coast zone 9B: Raja Puri, Dw. Brazilian, Dw. Orinoco, Dw. NamWah, Dw. Cavendish, Dw. Green?, Dw. Red? Iholena Tigua, Veinte Cohol, Misi Luki, Pisang Raja.

Richard

So put it to use to form the spreadsheet you desire. Make sure you include genome information (e g. AABA) and especially photos of female and male flowers. Also be aware that given all this information, even the world's experts in banana identification can often only narrow an individual specimen down to a group and not a specific cultivar.

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Back in business at plantsthatproduce.com

Gabe15

It may be able to be produced reasonably accurately for something like the 20 most common varieties in the US and Europe, but it would quickly become useless if you tried to be all inclusive and get a scope of wider banana diversity. Also, it would only be accurate when the plants are fruiting, but it seems many folks here desire some way to tell what variety it may be well before fruiting, which is not practical unless you have a small set of known possibilities and they are very distinct in some way, such as if you ordered a few different varieties and the nursery lost track but know what each could be.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

Mudturkle

I think that may be a help to a lot of people. If it helped ID 20 or so of the most common varieties that might help a lot of people. For example, I once got a banana from going bananas. I gave a neighbor a pup. Meanwhile over the years my original banana died. But I was able to get a pup back from his family. So it was a banana that going banana carried, but it's been a few years and I can't be sure which one it was.

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Central Texas Zone 8B and Gulf Coast zone 9B: Raja Puri, Dw. Brazilian, Dw. Orinoco, Dw. NamWah, Dw. Cavendish, Dw. Green?, Dw. Red? Iholena Tigua, Veinte Cohol, Misi Luki, Pisang Raja.

edwmax

If members would help up date the forum WiKi with pictures and data (& their growing zone), this would be a big help. ... Then a spreadsheet could quickly narrow the possibilities down the a cultivar groups and/or may be a to a few sub-groups. For instance, leaf and pstem colors will quickly eliminate many cultivars leaving the possibilities. Then leaf size (length-width ratio) and shape of the petiole could further eliminate a few of the possibilities. ... After this, one would need fruiting characteristics to make further determinations.

There ( I have not found) is no general spreadsheet as such for the world wide bananas grown. But this seems to be possible for the popular bananas cultivars grown in the US.

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edwmax

See Info:Identifying Bananas - Bananas Wiki in the wiki.

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Lau

Maybe we need a few different spread sheets with pictures. I started a few ID lists myself. This is what I came up with. I'm not a expert but I think it's right.

Banana Mat (group of bananas plants from the first plant)
Inflorescence (bud that holds the baby bananas)
Peduncle (stalk that supports inflorescence and attaches to the rhizome)
Rachis (stalk of the inflorescence from the first fruit to the end of the bud)
Rachis can be bare or covered with bracts
Scars on the rachis are called nodes

Pisang Raja messy rachis
Lakatan messy rachis
Dwarf Brazilian messy rachis
Rajapuri messy messy rachis
Grande Naine messy rachis
FHIA 3 messy rachis
FHIA 1 clean rachis
Williams clean rachis
Brazilian clean rachis
Orinoco clean rachis
American Goldfinger mostly clean rachis
Dwarf Giant (enano gigante) clean then messy rachis
FHIA 2 clean then messy rachis
Cavendish clean then messy rachis
Gros Michel mostly clean rachis

Susan

edwmax

Then there is the finger shape & mature size; color of the female & male flowers. Bud shape, size & color; position of the bud & peduncle.

Instead of different spread sheets, these are the different divisions of narrowing down the cultivar possibilities from young plant to flower & fruiting stage. ... Then one can reference the wiki for specific plant info & pictures for final identification if possible..

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Botanical_Bryce

Wiki lacks mature photos, petiole coloration, and clean resolution macros. Bunch of the wikis have a little plant in a pot and everything else is blank. Most of the wikis have blank data. With so much lack data I just found myself getting plants so I can do side by sides leading to an enormous collection and tons of macro photos.

edwmax

Which is why the wiki needs updating, links to photos already in the org gallery by members who have grown the subject plant.

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Gabe15

This is an interesting idea, but it's actually quite difficult to sort all of the relevant data, or even to know which data points are relevant or not, and which change by environment and age of the plant, and which do not. There is also the very real situation that routinely arises where two different people are observing the same plant and using the same set of identification characters, but arrive at different results.

On a larger scale, this is an on going effort involving many different researchers using a variety of techniques to answer the simple, but sometimes very difficult question of: how can a given variety be reliably identified? Some of it would transfer well to the hobby scene for dedicated enthusiasts willing to put some time to study it all.

Here are some examples and starting points.

This is the standard set of descriptors used for Musa characterization (there are modified versions for specific subgroups, notably Plantains and Mutika/Lujugira).
https://www.bioversityinternational....s/pdfs/326.pdf

Here is an example of an accession (in this case, a Silk cultivar) in the MGIS which has photos and ratings for the minimum set of descriptors which is a subset of the whole set linked above.
https://www.crop-diversity.org/mgis/...on/01BEL084769

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

Botanical_Bryce

I would have no problem with that but some of my photos go through while most are rejected. All the same format best I can tell. Also I know as a fact not all the photos that were in the wikis matched the plants simply because single photos were used for more than one plant. A curator needs to approve photos and data.

Botanical_Bryce

I have been seeing variables in my own collection. Dwarf Brazilians in the sun have open petioles and tinges of pink while the same plant from the same batch in part shade has bigger more rounded leaves and closed petioles. Also my tall orinoco makes blocky fruits while the same plant from the same batch planted in the shade makes full round fruits.

subsonicdrone

i happened across this recently and wondered if there was an equivalent for musa

Lucid Key Server: Citrus ID

good template?
sorry i am not tech savvy enough to help otherwise