Kat2

Absolutely someone who has grown a plant to fruiting will send you the real deal or, at the least, be able to tell you what they think they have; resellers of TCs just cannot know the parentage. I can pick up TC DCs any day at the big box stores; it's really hard to miss those splotches. Having moved to where there's a banana plant on every corner (not really), I'm having fun growing my mysteries which I hope members here will ID when they're a bit older and don't look so bedraggled.

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meizzwang

some more mystery tissue cultured plants, this time from Florida Hill Nursery. I regret to hear these guys have a very poor reputation, perhaps acquiring these desirable banana cultivars was too good to be true! Well, we'll see, maybe I got 3 orinocos instead of 3 DC's, fingers crossed! Also, if you have plants from them, BEWARE: the underside of the leaves came INFESTED with spider mites! Not much of a problem outdoors, but it can be a huge issue indoors.


With any of the tissue cultured plants pictured below, if you see any obvious traits that suggest it could be "real" or traits that suggest that it's not real, feel free to let us know!

First up is what I'm hoping is goldfinger:


notice the red edging on the petiole. P-stem seems to be very green:


Some faint wine blotches on the leaves:


Birds eye view of the supposed Goldfinger:










Next up, we have, fingers crossed, Dwarf Brazilian. Please don't tell me this is a dwarf cavendish, pleeeeeease!!!


This plant is starting to look like my fake california gold:








Last but not least, we have "Raja Pisang":


Very colorful P-stem:


Some faint wine splotches:


Interested to see what you guys think!

verbal

Meizzwang, your dwarf brazillian looks EXACTLY like my tissue culture blue java I bought from GreenEarth back in June. Im a little upset after seeing this thread because I'm a first time banana plant owner. I also bought four of these plants because I love vanilla ice cream and figured it would be delicious. I even read a few reviews praising GreenEarth so I thought I was making a good purchase.

I would post pictures but I cant for the life of me get the upload to work from my tablet. It says completed and successful but I always end up with nothing in my album.

This really sucks because I dont know if I can put anymore banas in my yard. It was a struggle getting the wife to agree to the four I bought. On a side note, can anyone vouch for the blue java that Going Bananas is selling? If not Going Bananas, is anyone able to tell me where I can get the real thing or is anyone open to selling one from their collection?

Kat2

Crazy Banana, a member here, has Blue Java or did. Someone closer to you might also but they won't know unless you to edit your profile to show your location and growing zone.

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verbal

Thanks, Kat2. I made the edits like you suggested.

Kat2

You live in FL and your wife doesn't want more banana plants? This Yankee transplant is enchanted by them and I don't even like bananas.

Seriously, check out Banana Plants for Sale & Auction section and/or post your request in Banana Plants Wanted.

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meizzwang

some picture updates, photos taken 8/30/15.

FHN's Musa 'Goldfinger,' same plant pictured above but about 2 weeks later, acclimated to outdoor/full sun conditions. These really grow quickly once you harden them off:



Greenearth Publishing's "california gold" which many suspect isn't the real deal:



Greenearth's Musa 'Ice Cream,' which is growing very slowly, maybe because the corm wasn't planted at the proper depth:



Here's what was sold to me as "veinte Cohol" @ a local farmer's market, but turns out it's likely Hi color mini. Check out the wine marks on the water sprout's leaves. This is also a pretty slow grower:


And a group shot. The 2 bigger plants near the bottom of the steps are rajapuri (editlant flowered in July, verified not rajapuri. Still don't know what it is). Now those have grown crazy fast, almost doubling in size in about a month:

meizzwang

Here's the same exact plants almost a month and a half later. We had some scorching heat waves and an Indian summer this year in Northern California...normally, it's pretty cold by now, but to this day, it still feels like summer and we're still having relatively warm nights. It's amazing to see how fast these plants grow, even under somewhat "marginal" conditions for bananas. Photos taken 10/10/15:

meizzwang

updated photo of the banana patch, taken 11/8/15. It was warm like summer until the first week of November, and it's been cold since. The bananas have stopped growing and fortunately no signs of any cold damage (yet). It drops into the high 40's at night.

a.hulva@coxinet.net

Thank you for doing a great job of posting before and after pics. Your trees/plants look fantastic. Beds are very nice. Good job!

meizzwang

Thank you!

It's now Feb. 19th, 2016 and here's how they look after being beaten up by many heavy rain storms and exposed to a few days of freezing temperatures. It's surprising that the Raja Puris (biggest plants in foreground...edit:verified these are not rajapuri, flowered july 2016. Still don't know what they are!) didn't completely die back! With El Nino hitting California hard this year, we've had a relatively warm winter, so that's been a plus for these bananas. Fingers crossed they produce this year! One of the varieties that we think is "hi color mini" completely died back under identical conditions to the rest (it's the plant at the very top of the staircase, looks like some stubs). Photos taken 2/19/16:

crazy banana

Your plants look a lot better than mine in Southern California. Hope you get some fruits this year.

Richard

I don't believe there are any TC propagators (incl. AgriStarts) that produce or sells "California Gold". Consequently, it is likely that someone in your supply chain deliberately lied about the breed of that TC.

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meizzwang

Crazy Banana: thank you! Just out of curiosity, have you had some cooler than normal temperatures in S. California, or has the rain been beating up the plants? I was under the impression that you guys can get away with little to no frost damage most years down there?

Richard: for sure, Green Earth Publishing Co's "California Gold" isn't the real deal, even without knowing that Cali gold hasn't been TC'ed. For one, the plant I have (pictured above, it's the third "cluster" from the bottom) is less cold hardy than the raja puris (edit: plant verified as NOT rajapuri, flowered in July 2016, still don't know what it is). Most of the leaves turned somewhat brown, and even the outer petioles of the p-stem turned brown from the cold. This plant was fertilized and watered in the exact same way as the Raja Puris, and they're in identical conditions. Over a period of about 3 weeks during November they were all slightly nutrient stressed and slowly received less water to help prepare them for the cold.

crazy banana

We live next to a canyon that sucks in some cold temperatures and therefore creates a unique microclimate, even though we live close to the beach. But a couple morning hours down to 28F did the damage to the leaves of my plants. All p-stems are fine.
A few years ago I probably would have freaked out and used frost protection, but it is way too much work or not feasible especially on the taller plants.

Richard

Southern California has many microclimates. Temperatures and rainfall can vary widely between local areas. For example here in San Diego County:

Temperatures and Precipitation - Sept. 1 2015 to Feb. 19 2016

VISTA (my locale)
Min 34°F, Max 101°F, 9 inches precipitation.

BAY PARK (crazybanana)
Min 40°F, Max 90°F, 5 inches precipitation.

EMERALD HILLS (pitangadiego)
Min 36°F, Max 110°F, 12 inches precipitation.

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Grannycore

My "Cali gold" from green earth turned out to obviously be a dwarf cavendish. I also ordered an "Apple" from them that turned out to have red leaves, and a "gold finger" that ended up being a super dwarf something. All got whisked off to moms in south Florida (she doesn't care what they are). This was definitely my learn-the-hard-way about only getting plants from trustable forum members. Sucks,too, because all the plants from green earth were really high quality at a great price.

Richard

From what I've heard to-date, it seems that "Green Earth" is a robust reseller of plants but unfortunately has a problem with authenticity of cultivars.

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Grannycore

Yes, I learned that the hard way. They were great plants that grew well but only the gods knew what they were. Lesson learned!

meizzwang

So here they are again several months later. It's been warm, cold, warm, cold, cold, , and then we're supposed to get a heat wave next week! We've had several windstorms this year, which are very unusual for this area.

In the foreground is raja puri (edit: plant flowered July 2016 and verified NOT rajapuri...still don't know what it is) standing at around 7' tall (only counting the length of the p-stem), but no sign of flowering. I was hoping to get an early flower so the bananas would be ripe before the cold season hits. However, if it does flower this year, the bananas will either have to survive this winter which is supposed to freeze a lot, or abort the fruit (assuming raja puri takes 7-9 months to mature). It's been 3 long years since the plant was first acquired, hopefully something happens! Photos taken 6/17/16: