harveyc

I cut off the flower bud and all male flowers today and took this updated photo.

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momoese

Here is my Raja Puri that I got from Jon. You can see the leaf structure on the pup in front of the mother. The bunch has about 90 fingers and bloomed at 6 feet of p-stem. These pics were taken today.

Chironex

How does one distinguish male from female flowers on the hands?

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Scot

momoese

The female flowers are on the actual fingers, the males are small usually fall off. Look at the picture above of my Raja Puri and you'll see female flowers on the end of the fingers, and some smaller male ones directly below them. When you have both on one hand you can see the difference.

harveyc

The male flowers on this banana did not fall off very easily like my other two bananas (or the Cal Gold which fruited last year). Looking at Jarred's photo, it seemed that the male flowers hung on his also.

I can't quite make out the leaf difference, Mitchel. I just took a photo of a large pup in this mat to see if that shows the leaves on mine any better.

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Dean W.

Great photos Guys.

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momoese

So what was the consensus on your plant Harvey? RP?

harveyc

I'm undecided, though I think it's probably RP. None of the pups have shown the red markings but the male flowers did hang on. The fruit didn't mature very well so that's not much to go on. I got some tiny TC plants of RP from Richard to help make a comparison, but it'll be a couple of years for me to get those large enough to flower. I should have another flower from this mat before long, I hope.

Thanks,

Harv

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momoese

If it's any help my RP drops all the male flowers and my DC retains almost all of it's.

conejov

How did the fruit taste did it taste like IC? or RP?

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harveyc

Jon made a personal inspection of this mat yesterday. He picked some fine weather of 100F+ to stroll around the garden. He thought they looked like Orinoco. I've got two plants in this mat with fruit right now. The larger bunch is on a flower that just showed the first hand yesterday and the second hand (14 fingers, a personal record for me) today.

I'll try to get updated photos in the next day or so. It's too dark right now!

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sunfish

RP



Male flowers

harveyc

Okay, I finally have some photos to post. I took these two days ago. As I said above, I've got two plants in this mat with fruit now. The first three photos are from the first flower on a less vigorous plant that is has been putting out male flowers for a while. The fourth photo is from a bloom on a more vigorous plant which showed it's first hand earlier this week and the second hand the following day with 14 fingers. I see two more hands at the moment. I'm guessing I'll have over 100 fingers on this latest flower.

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harveyc

Note: None of my pups have ever had wine-colored spots on them. Also, the edges of my petioles and leaves on my somewhat large (3') pups that I just looked at don't have any coloration either.

We were over 100F earlier this week and were in the lower 70s today. If we get some decent warm weather these things will have a chance of sizing up!

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venturabananas

I'm no expert, but Harvey, you plant looks exactly like my dwarf Orinoco and nothing like my rajapuri.

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sunfish

I agree.The Raja has a short wide leaf and shorter petioles than Orinoco.

harveyc

Thanks, Mark.

Do your Orinoco ever have as many as 14 fingers on a hand? I didn't think they had that many. The only time I bought Dwarf Orinoco (I thought) was in the same order as this plant but those two plants ended up being tall (10-11') and something else.

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venturabananas

Harvey,

I wish I could answer your question about the number of fingers on a hand -- but I'm a newbie. I only planted my first bananas back in April. The p-stem on my dwarf Orinoco is only about 4', so even if things go well, I probably won't be able to say anything about DO fruit for a year. But I can say that the growth form of my DO is really distinct from my other varieties (rajapuri, dwarf Brazilian, dwarf Namwah, misi luki, dwarf red, d. cavendish, goldfinger) -- longer petioles, as Tony said, and more widely spaced leaves.

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harveyc

Tony, regarding the leaf dimensions, I'd say that the mature leaves on the plants in this mat are about 24" wide by 48-60" long. I cut some off of an adjoining plant the other day as they were getting hung up in the latest flower. I was trying to figure out if I should round up a pig and wrap it up in the leaves.

As I recall from 2008, these bananas never ripened up very well and I'm not very hopeful of having enough time to get some ripe fruit from them this year either (unless we get quite warm and stay that way).

I hate having the uncertainties of these unknown varieties!

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sunfish

The leaves on my Raja are about 3' long and 14" wide petioles are around 4".The Dwarf Orinoco leaves about 3' long 11" witde petioles 14" long. No red on the Orinoco.

Raja leaves