bushwack

any ideas on what theses are , the fellow I got them from did not know,, they will produce fruit, he has gotten some fruit from them, the fruit looks like normal bananas you would get from the store. (not short and fat or odd shaped) except they are smaller, he said they are very sweet and good!! I have not gotten any from mine yet
they do not seem to be cold hardy, he just cut some off and left them in the ground last winter and none of them came back


or,, are the two big ones the same? they kinda look different to me.

the ones on the left were a taller p stem, about 5 ft when it was planted, it grew for a little while and then just started dieing off to nothing and then it busted out at the bottom into what looked like about ten very small plants,, I think after reading about it , it must have been choked,, any way it ended up being just two plants

I have two taller ones out in the front yard that look more like the center one.

I tried to just post a link to my gallery but some how it posted the pic

bushwack

here is one of the ones out front

sputinc7

Great job, considering your location. How do you overwinter? Bare root in the basement?
It's too cold there to ever keep one in the ground over winter (Besides Basjoo)... Maybe once during a fluke warm winter or something. I lived in central Illinois and we had a mild enough winter that gladiolus came back, unprotected... That only happened once in over 40 years, mind you.
It would be nice if we could blend the cold hardiness of Basjoo with the flavor of Gros Michel... Unfortunately, that has not been accomplished yet.

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Varieties I supposedly bought: Manzano, Cavendish, Blue Java, Sweetheart, and Gros Michel.
What it seems I actually have: Brazilian, Cavendish, Namwah, Dwarf Red, Gros Michel, Pisang Ceylon, Veinte Cohol and SH 3640, and American Goldfinger. FHIA 1, Paggi and FHIA 17... Always room for one more.

Iowa

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Growing Musa Orinoco since 1993 - Added 2018-Basjoo, Zebrina' Rojo, Ensete Red Abyssinian - Added 2019-Goldfinger - Added 2020-Kokopo (Short Cycle), Double (Mahoi), Highgate, Super Dwarf Cavendish - Added 2021-Pisang Ceylon(Mysore), Musa Margarita, Ensete Ventricosum - Added 2023 - Siam Ruby

Gabe15

Almost certainly 'Orinoco' based on it's traits and the narrow range of commonly available varieties in your part of the world.

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sputinc7

I don't want to argue with you, Gabe but.... this statement pretty much rules out Orinoco, doesn't it?

the fruit looks like normal bananas you would get from the store. (not short and fat or odd shaped) except they are smaller, he said they are very sweet and good!!

Orinoco is oddly shaped and not very sweet...

Just a thought.

Whatever it is, he has done well in his zone.

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If you lose your head and give up, you neither live nor win.

https://sputinc7.wixsite.com/covwc

Varieties I supposedly bought: Manzano, Cavendish, Blue Java, Sweetheart, and Gros Michel.
What it seems I actually have: Brazilian, Cavendish, Namwah, Dwarf Red, Gros Michel, Pisang Ceylon, Veinte Cohol and SH 3640, and American Goldfinger. FHIA 1, Paggi and FHIA 17... Always room for one more.

Gabe15

I thought about this bit of info too, but erred on the side of that being indirect information (our poster has never observed the fruit), and in my experience with bananas, unless someone has a broad range of experience eating many different banana varieties and is interested enough to really note their differences, its not unusual to “round up” to percieved similarities. Its hard to detail differences if you dont know what the range of different possibilities is.

Taste is also extremely subjective, and people very often describe fruits as sweeter if they are actually just more acidic. Its not harder for any homegrown banana to be sweeter than a standard export Cavendish, but even setting that aside, if you give an average person a ‘Namwah’ and a ‘Brazilian’ and ask which one is sweeter, they will almost always say the ‘Brazilian’. If you measure the brix, the ‘Namwah’ is sweeter and has more sugar, but it has almost no acidity, and the slight acidity in the ‘Brazilian’ compels most people to describe it as sweeter. I generally disregard taste assessments unless its from someone who has tried many different types, otherwise there is not enough examples in their head to compare to, and even then, its always with a grain of salt. In grad school, I worked in a fruit breeding lab, and we would have to do papaya taste tests, and even though I had had a handful of different papayas before, I had to try about 25-30 different hybrids before I could really calibrate my mind enough to note any meaningful differences, they all tasted like papaya until I had enough of a range of different fruits to know what the boundaries/possibilties were.

My friends and I run a produce distribution company here in Hawaii, and it is a constant process to work with our growers for them to be able to properly ID banana varieties and tell two different ones apart. What are painfully obvious differences to me, because im interested and have seen so many, often does not register with less banana-minded folks, and i routinely have to sit down with them and go through how to ID them.

And that is just the fruit. We are looking here at plants which also have a lot of information to be observed, the plant is clearly an ABB, and has classic Bluggoe (subgroup of ‘Orinoco’) traits. To me it is much more likely that someone saw and ate the fruit, figured its pretty much a banana, and rounded it up to being more or less similar to the probably the only other banana theyve had, rather than that this is some ultra unique and mysterious hardy banana with the vegatative traits of ‘Orinoco’ (which is a ubiquitous plant) and the fruit of a Cavendish. Everything is possible, but not everything is likely. Just my morning thoughts, I could be wrong, but I’d put my money on ‘Orinoco’.

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bushwack

Thank you all for the input,
I have the five biggest ones bare rooted in the garage, it has a ten ft ceiling ,, no basement and they wont fit in the house, four of them were 10 ft p stems and the other was 12 ft and prolly close to two hundred pounds apiece, I don't think the garage will get below freezing, ( I hope ).

the other 30, yes 30,( I started with 5 and ended up with 35, looks like all the pups I dug should be growable ) are in the house in a dark closet.


Oh yeah, I forgot that had a pic of some bananas that the fellow I got these plants from got from one of his plants this year,, I said they look like normal bananas but smaller, but after looking at the pic they might be a little odd shaped,, this may help In figuring out what variety they are



Thanks again for the input so far

Gabe15

After seeing the fruit they are definitely 100% ‘Orinoco’.

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edwmax

And those are nice and fat ones too! ... Orinoco ... When nice & ripe they will have a nice sweet taste.

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Tytaylor77

100% Orinoco.

I have had nasty not very sweet Orinoco. They were almost always not very well cared for.

I have also had very good tasting sweet Orinoco. These are mine and friends which are cared for and fertilized.

Could this be the effect of potassium fertilizer increasing the starch/sugar? Bananas are mostly potassium. Something about how bananas are grown effects flavor and sweetness for sure.

Also look at the effects of potassium effecting the sweetness of watermelon studies.

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