Meirizon

Hi everyone! This is my first post, great community you have here.
I was hoping you guys could help me - I have this tree for about 7-8 month, and since then, it grew a lot of new leaves, but the stems barely grew in height.
What could be the problem?
Here are some photos so you can see:

https://i.ibb.co/KN26w8Q/101742894-5...81431808-n.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/YtyyfZ9/101384528-5...27459584-n.jpg

Thanks!

Backyard Banana Joe

Hello! Welcome!

I see three problems.

1. The soil looks too dry.
2. The soil doesn't look like it was amended (compost, organic matter)
3. There are too many plants. You need to thin them out. Dig off all the plant's except the biggest one. You can plant them somewhere else or pot them. Then apply mulch to the surface and work some kitchen scraps into the soil. Then water.

Akula

What BBJ recommended above.

Your plant looks pretty good but the soil looks very hard, dense, and difficult for the plant's roots to grow and spread out. Soil remediation with either black cow composted cow manure or similiar would probably help as well as a mulch layer on top to minimize evaporation.

edwmax

What type of banana do you have? Apparently it is a dwarf of some kind.
So how tall is the pstem? 5 ft to 8 ft is about the max. height the pstem will have.



The plants need water or shading from the heat. Don't worry about separating the pups from the mother corm. As long as enough fertilizer and water is given, ALL will grow.

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Meirizon

Thanks for the help guys!
First, let me start off by saying that i give the plant about 10 litres of water everyday. Is it too much? too little? (I know banana is a heavy drinker)
I guess a good amount of the water gets evaporated, like Akula said.
Also, recently iv'e added Humus to the soil.
edwmax, as for the plant's type, unfortunately i'm really not sure. The app "PlantNet" recognizes it as "Musa acuminata Colla", but i don't know how accurate it is.
So what i understand i should do:
1. Add more organic matter (is humus good?)
2. Add some mulch to minimize evaporation

What i'm unsure about(since the opinions are divided):
Separating the pups from the mother - should i do it or not?

Thanks again!

Backyard Banana Joe

I guess like edwemax said, if you fertilize and water enough, all plants will grow. Me, I would thin

Akula

In my opinion it depends on your objective, zone you are growing, and space/# of plants available.

I'm on the edge of zone 9 and get a pretty good freeze every winter and I don't have a huge amount of space for my plants. I thin my plants aggressively in order to concentrate resources into one fruiting plant each year and one follower for the next year. I also do this as I want the plants to take a certain position in the limited spaced I have allocated to banana plants. I don't want them to grow just willy-nilly from a subjective aesthetic standpoint. I get big edible bunches from about 50% of my plants each year using this approach.

edwmax

Musa acuminata Colla is a wild ancestral plant to the modern cultivated Bananas. Your photos clearly show wine stains on the leaves. Therefore I believe you may have a Super dwarf Cavendish Banana. You didn't state the height of the pstem; I'm guessing it is about 3 1/2 ft.


Banana leaves fold down for 2 reasons: Lack of water or high heat (radiant sun temp). This is a self preservation mode for the plant. ... So turn-in some compost & mulch into the top of the soil; and then cover the area with mulch. This will help hold some water and cool the top of the ground & nana roots. ... But note, banana plants are shallow roots and the top of the corm should be near ground-top level. So you may need to excavate some of the soil around the plant, then refill to the top of the corm with the amended soil. ... Misting will also help to cool the plant without heavy watering during the heat of the day.



As for dividing the pups from the mother plant, you can do it now or do it later. If done later the pups will be much bigger, better rooted and more desirable for trading or gifting. ... Remember the main pstem will die after blooming or at 2 to 4 years of age. You want to keep the best pup (or 2) as a replacement. ... As to my earlier statement, it is not that critical to get rid of the pups right now.

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