bananaman

Another species that looks terrific.
Caught this one surfing the internet this evening.
Does anyone have any details.
Living in UK means I cannot share / exchange cultivars / pups ,as you people in the U S A can ( I envy you !!).
Main question.....can it be propagated by seeds (my main source of extending my collection)
Does anybody out there have it?
Gabe has given me loads of inspiration and guidance so perhaps he will give me his thoughts on this one.!!
Trying to gey my collection ( about 15 varieties through a very cold English Winter at the moment)
Thank you all for your help.

Gabe15

Musa troglodytarum is an improper (and out dated) name that was applied to Feh'i group edible Musa. However, the name is not as important as the plant and the plants that it immplies are definetly ones that most collectors would like in their possesion (myself included!). Feh'i (aka Fe'i) is a group of edible bananas with obscure origins, all that is really known about them is that they are in the subgenera/section Australimusa (as opposed to all other edible bananas which are from the subgenera/section Eumusa), and that they evoloved and were cultivated seperately from the other edible bananas. They may have been exclusively derived from Musa maclayi, but since they are so poorly known it has not been detirmined if other Australimusa species played a role as well. They must be cooked before eaten otherwise consumers usually get a stomache illness and it is reported that its consumers can also have redish urine after ingesting. They are normally very hard to get, especially in the US, however, David Constantine of Koba Koba Nursery has listed on his website (www.kobakoba.co.uk) the Feh'i cultivar Musa 'Utafun' so I would recommend contacting him about that.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

Bananavilla

Gabe, where do you get this stuff? It is clear that you spend a great deal of time researching bananas.
Is most of your info from the net, books?
Mike

Gabe15

I get info from books, online and disccussions with experts and researchers. Ive now started to look more into books, the Denver Botanic Gardens has a large botanical library which I spent some time in everytime I visit. Online resources are good if you know which ones are reliable, but I also like to back up information by looking it up in books as well as confirming with experts when needed.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

Chironex

Gabe, this is fascinating stuff! Unfortunately, kobakoba.co.uk is no longer working. I am going through the MGIS database to try to locate someone with access to F'ei seeds. Any ideas about where I might find some?

What I am thinking is finding a fertile wild species with drought/heat tolerance and with fewer than 5 seeds per banana, to cross with a tetraploid. Does this make any sense, or is my thinking flawed?
Thanks in advance for your reply.

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Scot

Gabe15

I am currently growing out a few different Fe'i cultivars for distribution to hobby growers in Hawaii and members here. Some Fe'i do produce seeds, but close to nothing is known about their viability and true-to-typeness. I highly doubt you will be able to find Fe'i seeds for sale anywhere.

Bananas are a particularly difficult plant to traditionally breed, inherent in the fact you are trying to produce seeds from a plant that does not want to do so, and from those seeds produce a plant that wont want to form seeds either. It is possible, but what is generally required is lots and lots of plants, lots and lots of trials, and lots and lots of patience. It can be done by the home grower, but when you look at the amount of work breeding stations put into producing just a handful of new varieties over decades of work, you may begin to appreciate the difficulty of the work in a sense.

Describing all of the intricacies of banana breeding here on the forum would give me carpal tunnel syndrome, but if you are serious about learning how its done, I recommend finding the book "The Evolution of the Bananas" by N.W. Simmonds.

Attached is a short summary of breeding by Ken Shepherd.

Attached Images

IN940127_en.pdf (20.3 KB, 17 views)

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

Bananaman88

Gabe,

What is going to be your criteria for distributing these plants once they are available?

STEELVIPER

i think also doing "on site field research" in Hawaii has helped gabe in his knowledge of bananas. Wish i could do some "field research" in Hawaii. Lucky!!

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Gabe15

If I have them, and you want one, you can probably get one. Thats my only plan for now.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

chong

Wish I could do a "filed research" on bananas in HI myself, too. Gabe, do you need an assistant?

Bananaman88

I don't know, that's some tough criteria! Yeah, if you have any extras I'd be interested in trying one out.

I wish I'd done a little more looking for bananas when I was in Hawaii for vacation a couple of years back. I did see some nice one's though. It's an awesome place to visit, not to mention, living there for months on end!

Chironex

Gabe, if you have a spare F'ei pup or even some seeds, I would really like to buy them from you. Please let me know by PM whenever. Thanks very much!

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Scot

damaclese

thanks for the paper Gabe was a nice over view of some of the history some of it was a bit obscure for me but I'm sure as i keep reading it will all become clearer to me at least I'm starting to understand the different genetic gropings and how they cam in to existence and how they have been intermixed not fully but in part at least

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damaclese

Gabe could u explain the Australimusa group a Little bit.
why is it that we don't hear much about thees. if breading for resistants and other genetically Superior traits is what we want. why ignore a hole other sub species of plant that may or may not influence the potential for new x sports of Superior characteristics?
ps Gabe could u describe the Fe'i some what more in depth and i would defiantly like one too?
are the Australimusa variates hardier or more drought resistant ?

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Gabe15

I think this is what you are looking for...enjoy!

Attached Images

Australimusa and Feh'i.pdf (856.3 KB, 19 views)

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

damaclese

wow Gabe the sound so interesting i wander if they would cross with any of the Emusa variates?
and would the resulting fruit have to be cooked or would its sugar content be higher than the Australiamusa all interesting and vary intriguing what is the ficus of your field research on the Fe'i banana Gabe?

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Gabe15

In theory they should not cross with Eumusa due to differing chromosome counts which usually prevents crossing (n=10 vs. n=11), but this didn't stop nature and there are hybrids. However, as mentioned before, very little is known about these bananas and close to no work has been done on them compared to Eumusa varieties. The only thing I have done with them is try to collect as much info as I can (I actually have a whole book on them, published in 1947 which was really the most work done on them it seems, but you can see current info is lacking), and I've tried to collect them in Hawai'i, I have 2 different ones from a botanic garden and one that I found in the forest near my school, I also have one in Colorado of a different known variety (but cannot distribute it). I only know the identity of one of the Hawaii ones and am working on determining what the others are.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

damaclese

good luck it sounds like a totally fun and interesting exercise and I'm a bit envies to be honest i think the reason I'm so interested is that that Regen is known for its extremely hot reflective sunlight
and all those islands have periods of dry conditions I'm thinking that theres some possibilities to bring thees characteristics in to Banana x sports that could at least for those of us living in hot dry conditions offerer some better variates for us
i know you said that they don't cross but has any one really tried?

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damaclese

is it just me or is the ORG really slow to day people reply around hear at the speed of light and its taking all day just to see a few responses

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Bananaman88

Interesting stuff, Gabe. It's nice to be able to combine work with what you really love to do isn't it? Now if I could just figure out a way to work bananas into my work a little more!