DoctorSteve

I was wondering has anyone tried planting legumes around their bananas as a way to bring more nitrogen into the soil for the bananas. Also if you have vine type beans they can climb up the banana.

I am thinking of trying it but was just wondering if anyone else out there has tried it before.

Gabe15

It can be done, but the challenge of it is that in order for any of the fixed nitrogen from the legume to be available to the banana, the dead legume tissue must be incorporated into the soil. This is normally not a problem for vegetable growing, as typically a legume crop or cover crop is grown, and then it is tilled into the soil before the next non-legume crop. For banana, it is not easy or good for the roots of the plant to be tilling in anything around the plant. To get the most out of it, the legumes should be grown in a somewhat nitrogen-limited environment, otherwise they will not be fixing their own nitrogen from the air, even then.

What you could do though is a few things:
1. Plant a legume ground cover such as Perennial Peanut, Arachis pintoi, which will slowly add nitrogen over time through shedding debris. This is typically done in orchard settings.

2. Plant any legume, and when the crop is done, put the plant parts on the soil surface around the banana and cover it with mulch.

3. Grow a bunch of legumes somewhere else, and put the plants into the planting hole when you plant a new banana.

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

Nicolas Naranja

Perennial peanut has been used in citrus groves, but just to supplement the normal fertility program. Bananas are generally planted to close to allow a legume to photosynthesize much. They also would tend to compete with the banana ver effectively with potassium. Their are bacteria that form an associative nitrogen fixing relationship with bananas, but you are unlikely to produce nearly enough nitrogen to to produce optimal yields.

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Some people go bananas, I went plantains.

oakshadows

Need more nitrogen, use blood meal. It es readly available at garden centers but less expensive at Feed stores. We do organic so it is in use all around here along with the other meals, such as cotton seed meal and bone meal. Like to know what goes into our food.

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"What this country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds."

Capitum

Since the topic is companion planting, has anyone companion planted rhubarb and banana? I heard that rhubarb deters some insects, and it grows well in my area. I'm planting in deep compost, so I think there is enough nutrient for both(?)

oakshadows

Rhubarb sounds like a good idea. There are so many bugs here that anything that helps is welcome. Basil is good also as a bug deterent. Might also make somewhat of a ground cover with those large leaves.

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"What this country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds."

DoctorSteve

That is what I thought, but then I was reading about leguminous trees that provide nitrogen to the plants below. So I thought that maybe I didn't understand as much as I thought I did. Yeah for fertilizer in the yard I use coffee grounds, and I know this sounds strange but urine. Helps give a darker and longer green than anything else I have used and it saves water. I am going to try that composted manure blend from Home Depot and see if that helps at all.

DoctorSteve

So I emailed a lady from Standford University about this as well. She said she is not an agronomist but from what she understands from others is that in co-cropping beans with something like corn, as they do in the three sisters nitrogen is put into the soil by the beans. She said they think it may be from sloughing off or dead root tissue releasing nitrogen into the soil.
I may not be saying exactly what she said but, the point is the same.
Now how much is released I don't know. I am thinking that as the plants grow together (three sisters) maybe some of the been roots are broken off as the other plants push and grow in the soil. I don't know though it's just a thought.
I thought I would give it a try when I have more bananas to compare. If they don't perform better that is ok at least the beans can climb the bananas right?

Her is one of here youtube videos, some of you may find them interesting.

sunfish

So we should all be mulching with Alfalfa.

DoctorSteve

Maybe, I have been looking at native legumes to till or mulch with though.