druss

Got six musa thomsonii from a batch of 50 seeds from rarepalms, they seem to be going well. Plan on putting them in four hundred litre pots come spring and applying a commercial fert regime. See if I can push them along. [IMG][/IMG]

Richard

Native: Bhutan, India [Meghalaya, Sikkim, West Bengal]

https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlo...aspx?id=458662

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druss

[IMG][/IMG]

druss

Thomsonii putting on some size, got four like this.

Tytaylor77

Amazing! I’ve been trying to get one for years! Great job man!

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imclumbi

A beauty for sure! Congratulations.
John

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John

Gabe15

I'm now in Yunnan studying M. yunnanensis populations, and doing some deep research and thinking. It seems to me that the true M. thomsonii (though what is "true" is difficult to say for sure as the original description is fairly vague) has never been offered for sale, and in fact the "M. thomsonii" that has been available are actually M. yunnanensis from Indian populations. It seems nearly all of the Musa species of Yunnan are actually basically a subset of some from NE India, perhaps with some slight variations. There is definitely some revision due for M. yunnanensis and perhaps a few other Yunnan Musa species.

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druss

Interesting, do you think the musa thomsonii you had were the "real" thing? Given the size of mekong giant, theres alot of variation in musa yunnanensis subsets.

Gabe15

Im fairly convinced the M. thomsonii I had were M. yunnanensis.

Everything Ive seen about ‘Mekong Giant’ seems to clearly indicated it is M. itinerans. Im doubtful there is anything particuarly “giant” about Mekong Giant as well, there is a lot of variation within M itinerans populations, and though some populations do indeed seem to be on average larger than others, it feels more like a function of environment than a solid trait. They have a tendancy to get quite tall in wet and shady areas.

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druss

So mekong giant is a subtype of itinerans. Okay, but I thought yunnanensis was also quite tall, certainly taller than whats been labelled thomsonii. Im guessing that is just different subtypes also?

Gabe15

yunnanensis is medium/average sized, normally about 3-5m Id say, not a particualry large plant. There doesnt seem to be much signicant variation of it within Yunnan, perhaps there are more different forms in Myanmar and India. At least one, maybe two of the described M. yunnanensis varieties do not seem to be M. yunnanensis at all.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Hawaii and Washington since 2004.

druss

That will make it interesting when my supposed thomsonii and yunnanensis flower then.