geissene

Hi all,

Just wanted to share that my 3 year old dwarf chamaluco is going to flower soon. A little late in the growing season but better than no flower. I have this beast in a large pot that is buried in the ground. Hopefully I can dig it up and bring indoors and actually get some ripe fruit next year. We'll see.....

Erik

Backyard Banana Joe

Congratulations!!!


What exactly is that?! Lo?

geissene

Thank you! Chamaluco is listed by TARS with it's own accession number (ABB type). It looks and grows much like dwarf orinoco to me in zone 6. I don't have orinoco at the moment so I can't do a side by side comparison - just my recollection.

Erik

Akula

Sounds like you are having a pretty successful season this year! Never heard of Chamaluco either but I would like to know how a guy in Pennsylvania ends up with a banana plant that doesn't even appear in the Wiki??

smeash

Congrats! Have never heard of that variety either! Pretty cool whatever it is! Best of luck with the fruiting phase!

geissene

Thanks!

I got this from TyTaylor a few years back. The pups are very heavy duty and this plant produces the thickest P-stem I can achieve in PA! I have one 2' tall chamaluco pup that had a corm so large it basically filled up a 5gal nursery pot. So I had to put it into a 10gal nursery pot immediately on transplant.... crazy!

geissene

Here is the 'lil champ' pup after transplant. I am using a marker to count the number of leaves until flowering. Hopefully I can better manage flower timing on this one....

geissene

And here comes the flower! In another month, this plant needs to come indoors somehow....

Backyard Banana Joe

Nice! An accomplishment!

wstrickland1

Very nice work!

Tytaylor77

Congrats Erik! Just curious did this one ever make it? Hope the next one is a little earlier in the year! How big was it spring 2020 when it was planted out?

These are amazing growers for me also! I sent yours and another out a few years back as a test. Both have flowered in your zone 6 and the other in 7a! With help/work of course! They do grow thick and fast! It doesn’t seem any more cold hardy to me.

I’ve trialed it over the past few years and it is 100% different than our normal DO or Cali Gold. For me it has flowered from 2-4 weeks sooner than any other bluggoe! I still don’t have quite enough info on it to be 100% but the 6 bunches here have all been faster than my other bluggoe types. Filling time seems average/normal. I’m excited to see how it does in the long term.

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sirdoofus

That looks like an amazing plant. I too am very curious to see what came of it over winter.

I am pretty impressed that 2 colder zone growers have been successful with flowering....potentially promising for us northerly folks.

Ty, when you say 'doesn't seem any more cold hardy...' do you mean as compared to dwarf orinoco? If so, does it seem to be less cold hardy or about the same as far as you have been able to tell?

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geissene

Hi Ty and SirD,

Thanks for the comments. The flower was beautiful and it produced 40+ finger size bananas. Unfortunately they didn't fill in before the cold weather hit. I was planning to bring the plant indoors with reduced leaves but the plant became a victim of my work schedule that was messed up because of the virus. The pstem broke in the wind.....

The chamaluco was 2.5 years old. In the first full growing year, the pup started at 1' tall and a little over 4' tall when starting the second full growth year. This has happened several times to me so now I'm planning to start the first full growing season with a 3' tall pup and see if I can get the timing better. I won't know for another year. I do think 'stress' fruiting could be a factor.

It grows well indoors for me as well. (Compared to VC / Patupi)

Erik

Pics below:

Yug

The leaves appear to emerge almost in the same plane as the previous ones. Only seen that once before. Nice growing!

Akula

Erik, is that your Patupi behind the Chamaluco?

geissene

Thanks Yug! My Dwarf Orinoco previously did the terminal leaf stacking as well. So I've seen it once before but I don't grow many plants either...

Akula: Yes that is the patupi in the background. It flowered for me back in March and I have a small bunch of fruit ripening indoors. I don't want to risk moving it outside since the leaves probably won't handle the sunlight.


Erik

Akula

Your patupi fruited? Huge congratulations! Where's the pics? We've been waiting years. Don't be shy. Let's see it!