pitangadiego

Harvey,

Here are the criteria and issues to consider and balance. Some things reflect the biology of the banana plant, others the realities of our non-tropical climate.

1) Each variety is different, and responds to stress differently. Cavendish varieties seem to take it least well, in my experience. So you may need to experiment a little with your particular variety to see what is optimal or doable. "Your result may vary. Details in store"

2) Taking pups near, during, or just after flowering usually stresses the plant and reduces fruit quantity and/or size. Obviously, after flowering, quantity is already determined, but size and survivability are still issues. Fruit was the goal, in the first place, so doing something which upsets that is counterproductive.

3) Taking pups to late in the season, without sufficient warm weather for them to re-establish leads to a significantly higher death rate. Plants in pots seem to take cold less well than plants in ground. So, removing pups in the late Fall is generally not a good idea. Southern Florida may be a different story, but when I checked, Isleton wasn't down there. ;-)) If you plant is dormant, or significantly slowed in it's growth rate, it is slow to heal the cut surfaces and slow to heal broken/damaged roots, and slow to establish new roots. So overwatering becomes a very easy trap to fall into, and then you have a rotted corm/pup.

4) Plants/Pups left to over winter in the ground seem to use the time to grow roots, making them more difficult to dig in the Spring. I have had Goldfinger pups that weren't even 6" tall, that wouldn't fit n a 5 gallon pot, because of the root mass.

5) Banana roots can extend 10' or more, but generally seem to occupy about a 10-12' diameter circle. The more trunks/plants in the "mat" the more the root resources are shared. That translates into smaller/fewer fruit.

6) Killing extra pups by cutting them flush with the ground, and maybe even digging out the growing point (can't remember the name for that - maybe meristem?) is a doable strategy, if necessary to thin the "mat" without disturbing the roots.

7) Some plants NEED pups for stability. Monthan rapidly looses root mass after flowering, and if not anchored by a couple pups, will just fall over.

8) Some varieties pup when the parent plant is still quite short. 3" pups on African Rhino Horn already had pups and "grandpups" (pups on the pups) on them, when removed.

9) Some varieties, such as African Rhino Horn and Popo'ulu have many pups (my first ARH had 50+) but they do not really get much above a few inches tall, until the parent flowers, and then there are many pups all at once. That makes staggered removal difficult.

10) Staggering pup removal over several weeks probably helps. My EleEle died, taking 6 pups with it within a few weeks of removing 2 pups. Don't know that pup removal was the issue, but it was a little coincidental.

11) If you can keep a selection of pups that are about 6-9 months apart, you should have good harvests, well spread, so that you only have one bunch hanging at a time, or one almost ripe, and one just flowering. However, with "dormancy" or drastically slowed growth rates in cooler weather (called winter), it is often hard to space them that way because they may only have 6-8 months of growing weather. Part of why this is an art, not a science.

12) I leave old plants (after fruit ripens) in the mat as long as they have green leaves. My thinking is that they are not using energy to produce leaves or flowers, so all that solar panel surface (leaves) must be contributing to other plants in the "mat". I have had plants hold leaves for a year (Misi Luki, for example), while other varieties often have no leaves left, and maybe not even a viable trunk by the time the fruit ripens (Cavendish varieties in particular). Older trunks/corms also can send up pups for a couple years, depending on how well the corm lasts. My Belle has a half dozen pups on a 2 generation old corm.

13) I do not know if pups feed the parent plant, or vice versa. Obviously the parent plant feeds the pup until it develops some independent roots, but they remain connected throughout their lifespan, so there may well be a complex interaction and sharing of resources.

14) If you want to establish several mats, removing a lot of pups, knowing that it will adversely affect the parent plant is fine. You will probably defer the gratification of tasting that first bunch by 12-18 months, but in the end, you have more bananas. I have no problem with that strategy - as long as there is "informed" consent - soft the pages of small print listing all the possible bad outcomes of a surgical procedure.

15) Anything adverse - lack of water, fertilizer, sun, warmth, etc., disturbance of roots, damage to leaves, crowding, etc. affect performance (size and quantity of fruit), and this seems to be exacerbated by our temperate climate where bananas spend a significant amount of time being dormant. Continued active growth, 12 months of the year, covers a multitude of sins

__________________
Encanto Farms Nursery
http://encantofarms.com
We Be Bananas
http://webebananas.com

harveyc

Thanks a bunch, Jon! (pun intended)

That's a lengthy response and I appreciate you taking the time to explain your thoughts on the matter.

I am anxious to also taste my Dwarf Brazilian so I don't really want to damage it significantly since it did bloom at a relatively good time of year for my climate (early July). One of the newer pups is on the side of an older pup opposite of the main plant so I can probably remove it now with little impact to the current fruit since the old pup is already somewhat of a barrier. I'm hoping the old pup will flower early next summer or late next spring so it should have time to recover. By then, I can probably remove those other two pups.

My soil is fairly heavy (a silty clay loam) and I only work compost into the soil in about a three foot circle and I have not seen roots extend out anywhere near as far as what you've described. On the other hand, there are a lot of nutrients in my mineral soil so my plants still due relatively fine.

Thanks again,

Harvey

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pitangadiego

Seems like a reasonable strategy.

__________________
Encanto Farms Nursery
http://encantofarms.com
We Be Bananas
http://webebananas.com

Greenie

great!

DisneyButterfly1

Thanks so much for all of the Super info. Fantastic Primer Jon!! Thank you for posting it!! I am very new at this so I truly appreciate your info & photos!!

DisneyButterfly1

Harvey, Thanks for all the detail in your post! That is a lot of info I needed to know, since I am a beginner.