Iunepeace

Hey fellow growers and banana hopefuls; I have a few plants here that I got from various relatives (lots of people grow bananas here locally) and I'd like to know what varieties they are if possible.

This one I suspect is an Orinoco (hopefully Dwarf); it's about 5 feet from base to where the newest leaf comes out of the pseudostem. Do you think so too?





Midrib looks to have a pinkish tint



I'm not sure what this one is; it has nice pinkish coloring on the pseudostem. For those of you who might be worried that it's too young to definitively say due to the vast amount of varieties in existence, it's definitely one of the standard, average-joe varieties grown in this area (Florida/North Caribbean), like Ladyfinger or something. We don't have much variety diversity or rare varieties here where I live, so feel free to guess any average variety pertinent to the area you can think of that looks like this.



At another angle


Thanks in advance!

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caliboy1994

The first one looks like it could be Orinoco. I don't think Orinoco has any pink coloration though, you'll know for sure when it flowers. I'm not sure about the second one. Where did you get it?

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Iunepeace

I have seen in some of this forum's threads that Orinocos usually are purely green, but who knows. And I'm a little eager, so I want to know what it is before it flowers (I'll still love it) since I can know what to expect.

The tall one I got from one of my grandmothers, who had two patches in her front yard. She cleared out the first one (I took a sucker from it beforehand), so it lives on through this plant I guess lol. The other pinkish one I got in a set of about 7-9 suckers from my uncle, who grows a ton of stuff on another island. He had like 6 or 7 bunches of Super Dwarf Cavendish ripening at the same time n_n so he could definitely spare a few sucker lol. It probably would've been taller by now (since I got it around Christmas) but I didn't pot it up until about two or three weeks later, so the pseudostem had to regrow almost from the corm level.

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sunfish

The second one maybe a plantain ?

Iunepeace

Plantains usually have pinkish coloring on their pseudostems as young plants? And the latter banana has open petioles, if that helps anything. Oddly enough, we don't have much plants here that are true plantains (with few hands and terminating male flowers) as far as I know, so if it is then it'd probably be a variety that's just culturally called a plantain, not one in the scientific group.

Do you think it might be a Ladyfinger Tony?

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Yug

The one with the maroon splotches should be in the Chinese/Williams/Cavendish group. The 'blood marks' are a characteristic of those. I had them on my Gros Michel while it was really young, too.

Iunepeace

Interesting. I didn't know those markings were only found in the Cavendish group. Do the Brazilians/Apples not have blood splotches in their youth then?

I honestly have no clue what variety it is now lol. I was initially wondering about Ladyfinger, but apparently that's a common name for many varieties.

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Yug

I had another banana with the 'blood marks' on it while small, but I can't recall whether it was a Dwarf Brazilian or a Manzano. I think it was the DB.

sunfish

I'm just guessing.Don't really know what it is.Some plantains have the splotches.
'Dwarf Puerto Rican'plantain

Iunepeace

I'm beginning to think of it as Brazilian as well.



That looks really similar! (except maybe healthier lol). I guess it might be some sort of brazilian or plantain. Is that DPR Plantain in the actual plantain group (meaning it bears only one or two hands and has a terminating male bud) or is it just used as a cooking banana, and bears a ton of fruit? (hoping for the latter lol)

Also, I didn't know plantains like that had so much pinkish tint to their pseudostems. Interesting

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sunfish

Agri-Starts, Inc. - Musa 'Dwarf Puerto Rican' Plantain

momoese

I grow both and have never noticed any splotches in either. Not saying it can't happen, just hasn't on my HA's or DB's.

nph

I am pretty sure the second one is Grand Nain or maybe Dwarf Cavendish.
(I have both and this looks almost exactly like my G N)

Iunepeace

Thanks for the link Tony! Since Dwarf Puerto Rican Plantains are a plantain mutant I guess it could possibly be a plantain. Don't see any pinkish pseudostem there tho.

Well I've never grown any of those varieties so I guess you'd know better than me lol. Are any of those in the Cavendish group at all, or completely different? I would think the Brazilians would have some pink streaking. They nor their suckers have ever had any pinkish coloring whatsoever in your experience Mitchel?


You think so? I'm not seeing any pinkish coloring on the suckers in the Dwarf Cavendish pic on the webpage Tony linked me, but they do have blood-colored streaked leaf pseudostem. I definitely hope you're right about the first guess and it's a Grand Nain (already have Super Dwarf Cavendish, and most growers say many bananas taste better than Cavendish) since it's touted to be a very good variety with good-tasting bananas. Has this been your experience? And how has the plants performed, bunch sizes bigger/smaller than Dwarf Cavendishes, took shorter/longer to fruit?

Thanks in advance everyone! I really appreciate you all helping me to identify what I'm growing!

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venturabananas

Dan, you probably won't know what they are until they produce a flower, and maybe not even then. There are lots of varieties, not just Cavendish that have the "wine stains" on the leaves of water suckers, though Cavendish varieties tend to have very pronounced stains. In general, varieties with lots of B (balbisiana) genes, like Orinoco and Namwah (both ABB) don't have wine stains. Ones with exclusively A (acuminata) genes (e.g., Cavendish AAA) will have the strongest stains, but not all varieties with only A genes have wine stains. Ones with more A genes than B genes (e.g., Brazilian and Rajapuri both AAB) can high light wine stains or none. Note that the wine stains are usually only present on water suckers and not sword suckers.

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momoese

When the sword pups are are just poking through the soil until they are several inches tall they have some pink color, and the midribs of the leaves have some pink color, but no wine stains on the leaves.

Nicolas Naranja

The one with wine splotches looks like a plantain. And by plantain I mean the ones with a few hands of 8-10" fruit. There are french type plantains like dwarf super plantain that don't lose their male buds and they are very pink on the pseudostem with wine blotches. I don't remember if the small gran nains had the pink psuedostem when they were young.

On your other plant, it's hard to say. When I first saw it I thought of Hua Moa, but that's probably because I've been planting them lately.

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Iunepeace

Thanks for the ton of info Mark; I really appreciate it! I realize that it's sometimes difficult to get a banana variety properly identified, especially at a youthful stage, but I'd be even glad to fin out what group of bananas it's in so I can get an estimate of possible heights, flowering time, growth habits, etc. Thanks again for the in-depthness


Thanks for the heads-up Mitchel; I'll be on the lookout for that with future swords with my other unknown varieties

Thanks Nick! I'm beginning to lean towards some type of plantain, or other tall variety, myself in regards to those pink wine-stained leaf ones. And definitely not a Hua Moa lol; we don't get much, if any, of those grown locally around here.

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Iunepeace

Update: My uncle, who lives on the capital's island and whom I got the pinkish tinted banana from (along with a few others), visited my garden a few weeks ago and told me that the tall green one is what we call here Sugar banana, so I'm thinking it's in the Ladyfinger/Sucrier family, some type of Dwarf[ish] Pisang Mas since it apparently fruits at around 8' or so (he said it had about 3' of growing left before it flowered), although the stem looks a little thicker than I expected for that variety. Thoughts?

Secondly, he identified the pinkish one as a plantain. Since it does have some A genes (hence the wine marks), could it be the Dwarf Super Plantain or Dwarf Puerto Rican?

Thanks in advance!

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venturabananas

The first one you have pictured is not a Sucrier. The petiole canal is too closed, the p-stem is the wrong color, etc. Sucrier is a AA genome banana. Yours looks like an ABB. It'll be interesting to see what it is when it fruits for you.

Plantain definitely makes sense for the other one. I have no idea which one.

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