PR-Giants

It depends on the cultivar, the common Florida Manzano doesn't need any roots and a very small percentage of it's own corm to survive.

A Rhino Horn doesn't need much of anything to survive.

Rhino Horn Pup

apr 21


apr 21


may 7


may 10

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PR-Giants

This has been incredible progress in such a short amount of time.

The 1st Step is to simply acknowledge the problem.

Now you are well on your way to "Corm Reform".

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Abnshrek

Ok, I may have torchered the Namwah when I dug that massive corm out, only because it broke my shovel, but somehow the kinderschnitzel are doing very well now days.. :^)

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Yuri Barros

I think that one have to separete things........

Mats from extract pups............from the mats in production.........

Mats in production have distinct management.............the pups are choped at surface level.............

In the past they used a tool called "lurdinha".........to dig the apical gem..........but now they chop the exceeding pups with a machete...........at soil surface level............

Every time they chop...........the apical gem grows near the surface...........until they cut it.......

You don´t touch the main corm in this operation.............

But if you want some pups to spread the plantation............I think that you have to choose few mats to do it...............

In this case a digging bar could help...........

But in Mats in production...........the use of digging bar ......or the "lurdinha"..........may be harmful.........and the wound maybe attract weevils..........Cosmopolites sordidus........

kentiopsis

The tool shown resembles the traditional Hawaiian digging tool called an 'o'o. The original 'o'o does not have the addition of the foot bar. The 'o'o I used in Hawaii lasted me 35 years and would have lasted another 35 had I not left it behind when I moved. There is no better tool for digging a deep, straight-sided hole, but it's not intended for removing banana keiki.

sunfish

And the other end is used for tamping soil

bananimal

I need my foot assist bar for when a visitor wants a 6 to 8 ft PK pup off the mat. A pick ax on either side of the pup makes the extraction easy. In this case the bar is only used to sever the pup/mama connection.

Nicolas Naranja

This is the first year I have had to deal with a corm weevil attack. Not the typical corm weevil that is totally black. Metamasius hemipterus is a terrible pest. I knew they were in the area, but they never attacked my plants until this spring.

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PR-Giants

From what I've read, South Florida has many weevils including the Cosmopolites sordidus, and they are terrible pest. The US bans local farmers from using many of these nasty pesticides that can effectively control weevils, but accepts produce from farmers outside the US that use these chemicals.

Clearly the US Gov is concerned about the health of US farmers, so they probably should consider implementing a Guess Worker Program, which would allow foreign workers to temporarily reside and work in the US, while performing dangerous low or semi-skilled agricultural labor and then return home once their contract has expired. Before returning home they will be given the opportunity to Guess which chemicals they were subjected to and win lovely departing gifts.

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www.infonet-biovision.org - Banana weevil

Most manuals give some of the basic tips on how to reduce weevils.

Although I've never seen this common sense tip.

I'm just a simple observational farmer that noticed many more weevil attacks happen the first night after planting freshly cut pups, then happens if those pups are potted for 7-10 days and allowed to heal in a weevil free area prior to field planting.

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Abnshrek

So planting a fresh cut pup in a friends yard would be really mean down there.. So much for trying to be friendly.. :^)

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lukem5

I understand that removing pups and leaving only a few pseudostems makes bigger bunches but I don't see how cutting pups at soil surface level would help improve harvest, the pups will just keep growing won't they? Thus the plant continues to divert resources to the pup instead of the bunch.

venturabananas

Yes, but it has more resources because it doesn't have to compete with another pseudostem that is also using light ("self shading"), water, and nutrients.

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lukem5

so after the flower has shown and if they are small ( <1 ft ) pups then there is really no use in cutting them to increase yield? Because a small pup cant be using that many nutrients, and like I said, if you cut it at soil level it will just keep growing, using just as many resources as before it was cut right?

venturabananas

Yes, that's my understanding. But small pups get big quickly, and use resources to do that quick growing, so preventative maintenance of regularly removing them will probably result in a bigger bunch (larger fingers), and save you the backache of removing them when they've grown bigger.

Personally, I don't remove all pups. My goal is to have around 3-4 pseudostems on each mat, which are different sizes/ages, to ensure more regular production of fruit. I'd rather have have slightly smaller bunches that ripen at different times to ensure I have bananas to eat more of the time. But I think the most common approach in large-scale commercial banana growing is remove all pups except one, which will produce fruit in the next crop cycle. I think that follower is usually selected around the time the "parent" plant flowers.

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edzone9

Kieth i still say my method is better than the bar, I believe it causes less trauma.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJz5oWcy0mo

Akula, Juicy Bananas, Mark Dragt