bananito

Good morning, I am new in this forum and relatively new to the world of Bananas plant but i'm enjoying them a lot to grow.

I have a 6 years old plant that some months ago (probably because I delayed too much transplanting it to a larger pot) suffered and the central leaf (the new leaf growing from the center of the plant) became brown and successively rotten... I remove that leaf but now the plant doesn't grow a new central leaf anymore and the growing of the whole plant is stopped. The plant is producing a lot of sucker but not central leaf anymore. The situation is like these already from several months and the centre of the plant, where the central leaf was is also a bit rotten....

What can I do to save my plant and restart its growth?

Here below you can see some photos when the problem started and as of today

louis14

I would suggest pruning it right down to an inch from the ground with a razor sharp knife. If the apical dominance has already been lost, then one of the existing pups or a new pup will grow into the dominant pseudostem from the existing mat. If apical dominance is still with your current pseudostem, it will regrow as new.

edwmax

How old is that stem? They don't live forever; only a couple of years if it doesn't flower. ... That was a nice looking Truly Tiny.



So now ... I suspect that plant is dying back, the pups can be saved.
From the looks of the leaves, I think there is root rot causing most of the issues.


I would:


1. Remove the plant from the pot & wash the soil off. The roots should be white. Black roots are rotting. Soft & black spot on the crom is rot. It the corm looks good then repot and check the pstem.


2. Cut the pstem in the middle; examine the center core. It should be white. It there is black or brownish tint, cut the pstem a little lower. Repeat it necessary. A bug could have eating into the pstem causing the problem and cutting can remove the bug. But if the rot continues to the top of the corm, the problem is with the corm.


3. Carefully remove the pups with some roots and bit of the corm. Repot these into a mix with 50%/50% potting soil & perlite. This is to prevent the rot from getting to the pups.



Good luck.

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bananito

Following the advices by the experienced users here above I decided to cut down the pseudo stem of my 6 years old Banana,
here the photo report... in short : the pseudo stem was rotten till few centimetres above the corm ... few days after cutting on the remaining part of the pseudo stem some tiny white insects appear, are these parasites? are these the parasites that caused the pseudo stem to rot?

This is the first cut of the pseudo stem... obviously it has to be done lower....


this is the second cut done a bit lower, the core is completly rotten, what was the cause? is this caused by parasites?


this is a third cut of the pseudo stem, still the core is a bit black so we need to cut lower


Finally after 4 cuts the core looks white and clean, there are only few centimetres left of the pseudo stem....


2 days after cutting the pseudo stem, some white insects appear on what was left of the p-stem.... are these parasites? are these the cause of the rotten stem?

edwmax

Not sure .... You said the pstem was 6 years old. They usually don't live that long. So I am not sure if the dying pstem attracted the bugs or if the bug caused the rot.


Anyway, I see several pups. I would take up the corm and separates any pups with roots and repot. ... Then clean and wash the corm in bleach water to kill any rot. Then pot in course sand with about 1/2" to 1" cover. The corm may yet grow several more pups before rotting away.

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Gabe15

Looks like a Super Dwarf Cavendish. It flowered but then choked inside, very common with this cultivar. The bugs are just opportunistically feeding on the rot, they are not the cause. It will continue new growth as the suckers, but in that small a pot I would separate them off and give them a fresh start in new pots/soil. You can tell it flowered because of the solid round stem in the center of the pseudostem, that rotten black mass was the bunch.

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