WildernessGreen

Help! I'm being taken over by a musa madness mass of banana seedlings!

A few weeks back, I planted around 100 of PR-Giants variegated musa seeds.....they started popping up on day 20, now at 5 weeks, I have over 40 of the little buggers!!! A few showing some real nice signs of variegation - woo hoo!

They are in pro-mix, I soaked 'em for a day before planting them around 1/4" deep, have kept them just slightly moist. In an area of my greenhouse that gets no direct sunlight, just some bright filtered light. Temperatures (Fahrenheit) averaging low 60's at night, mid 80's by day. Sometimes gets up to low 90's during the day. I have started feeding them with a custom mix of my fancy shmantcy compost tea and some Neptunes Harvest seaweed/fish goop.

My only regret is I put them all together in a flat, as I had heard so much about them taking up to a YEAR to sprout if at all, I figured, maybe I would get a few........now I wish I had used individual small pots, so I wouldn't have to worry about transplanting at a young age - but with this many, I can lose a few, no problemo!

It's going to be interesting during the next year or so watching the variegation develop on the ones I decide to keep and grow out. I will probably keep all the heavily variegated ones, and a few of the green ones, just to see what kinds of pups they will eventually produce!

Now the only mystery is, what actual species of musa are these guys? Are they simply unknown wild found variegated musa from Puerto Rico? Hard to put all that on a plant label.......
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relicshunter

Very cool.

S.Land44

That is very, very amazing. so nice.
I would love to try and grow some variegated banana seeds.
so awesome you had such great success.
Thank you for sharing.

Jeff zone 8 N.C.

Great work! I have had similar results. Thanks for posting the detailed temps that you are having success with as it can help others. My 1st sprouts sprouted under similar cooler night and high day temps and others later when nights and days were warm. I think mine have taken a break on sprouting lately as we have had so much rain, so no heat like we should be getting this time of year.

WildernessGreen

I have transplanted into individual pots, the 30 strongest ones, and all the highly variegated ones. But more and more keep sprouting, I'm at like 75 out of a hundred seeds now! I have culled around 10 weaker ones...... The main thing I have noticed, is all the highly variegated ones, are very weak compared to the all green ones, will they start showing some more vigor as they grow? .....and I'm wondering will the ones all green now, show any variegation as they mature? And of course the main question what actual variety are they? A lot of questions, will be answered in the next year or so..........as always in recent weeks, I am only able to log onto this site very rarely, it's usually down on my end.

Jeff zone 8 N.C.

Yes the variegated ones are much weaker than the green ones. Some of my variegated have twisted leaves. Some of my green sprouts are already showing a stripe or so of variegation. The mature green and slightly variegated plants are supposed to possibly make variegated offshoots. The variegated ones will always be a little weaker to certain conditions than green ones but will get better when larger. Mine are from the Musa Acuminata group of wild bananas. Probably yours too. Yea took me about 30 mins just to log in and make this one post. God forbid I try to load a pic. I find the site speed highly variable. Sometimes, in the morn, it is much faster but other times I just have to try to log in and leave the computer and come back in an hour or so to see if anything opened.

all43

How are they getting on?

PR-Giants

Congrats on your success...

3 weeks is about the normal amount of time it takes for these seeds to germinate and the germination rate should be very high.

Some people find it very easy to grow these seeds, some people find it difficult, and some people find it impossible. That's why using advice from unsuccessful people is not recommended. These people usually don't know when to start counting for the 3 weeks. It's not 3 weeks from planting, it's 3 weeks from when environmental conditions are satisfactory.

As far as for the people that say it takes a year or more for these seeds to germinate, they are providing useful information. These seeds will remain highly viable for several years when properly stored.

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The seedlings are durable and easy to transplant. I normally collect and store them in a bucket of water, as seen in the photo below, until I'm ready to transplant them. I've found they'll stay in good condition for up to a week in a bucket of water as long as someone doesn't drink all the water, the water is necessary for the roots.

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I've spent a lot of time and effort growing the ones with twisted leaves to see if they improve but none of them had ever became vigorous so now I cull them immediately.

The purpose of sharing the variegated seeds was to see which members had enough knowledge and skills with seeds to offer them seeds from cultivars and let them grow and produce new varieties.

At first sharing seeds from cultivars seemed like a good idea but it would be potentially wasteful to risk these seeds while members learned the basics about germination.

For members that are successful with the variegated seeds I'll make available seeds from the Blue Java x variegated acuminata, and after that will be the A'ea'e x variegated acuminata. PM me if interested.

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Jeff zone 8 N.C.

Thanks for the tip on the twisted leaved sprouts. Of the two I got they do just seem to resist any efforts to get them to grow like the other sprouts. I have even tried a very mild nutrient spray to their leaves every couple of days and even that did nothing. I have a couple of other variegated ones that also seem to refuse my best efforts so I suspect they are a waste too but I will leave them to see if they surprise me. Most of the other sprouts grow well.

patches016

I have had some fiarly good success. I looked up some info on getting seeds to germinate but they were not very helpful for my situation. I eventuallt threw all the seeds in a pot with some Fox Farm's Happy Frog sol and set them outside under my shade structure. I made sure to keep an eye on the soil moisture and let the AZ heat do the rest. Once the plants unfurl their first leaf, I will transplant them to their own little pot and get rid of any undesirable plants (curled leaves from what I have read).

Attached Images

Sprouted seedlings.jpg (1.49 MB, 11 views)

PR-Giants

Congrats on your success

Understanding aeration, moisture, and temperature is much easier with the hindsight of success. I'm interested in hearing about how your transplanting went. I've found the younger the seedlings the easier the transplanting and it's mainly because the roots are less developed and acclimate more quickly. If I don't do it early, I'll wait until it has developed at least a small rhizome.

I'll be sure to hand pollinate a Blue Java for an early Spring harvest, @patches016 @Jeff zone 8 N.C.

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