Bunchy top paranoia
I had some bananas that appeared to be afflicted by bunchy top. I must have purchased a banana with the virus and then spread it around with my shovel when removing suckers. I have removed all bananas from my property and then planted some new ones in different places. The other day, I had a pile of mulch in my drive way and was near the end of some sheet mulching. One of the infected bananas that I had removed shot up a sucker, so I removed it with a shovel and put new mulch over that area. Shortly thereafter, I still had some mulch to get rid of, so I loaded it into my wheelbarrow and dumped it onto my new banana, using my gloved hand to coax the mulch out of the wheelbarrow - the same glove that I was wearing when removing the infected banana pup. Is this likely to have spread the bunchy top to my new bananas? Should I take any protective steps, like trying to get rid of some of that mulch? Am I just being insanely paranoid?
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Re: Bunchy top paranoia
Where are you located? Are you sure its even BBTV you are dealing with?
BBTV is only spread by the banana aphid feeding on infected plants and then moving to non-infected plants, not on tools, mulch, or in soil etc... |
Re: Bunchy top paranoia
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Here are some photos: https://imgur.com/a/AHATfvK https://imgur.com/a/y9HDaj5 |
Re: Bunchy top paranoia
What is your feeding/ watering regime?
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Do the other plants affected in your landscape include colocasia/alocasia perhaps? |
Re: Bunchy top paranoia
I have a few friends in Florida and never had bunchy top and have gotten a bunch of bananas from them and around no issues. Would be pretty rare for you to have it. If you feed to heavy or something is off in the soil that will happen…
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In looking at your photos, you definitely do not have BBTV. To me it looks like either one of two things, calcium and/or boron deficiency (they present very similar symptoms and can also occur in tandem), or Cucumber mosaic virus which infects a wide variety of plants and occasionally jumps to bananas. Have you had healthy mature plants thrive and fruit in your exact location before, or are all of the plants you see it on new and young? I ask because if you've been able to have healthy vigorous plants growing in your location with your practices before, it's highly unlikely for a nutrient deficiency to randomly pop up (unless you introduced a new practice or additive to the soil), which would point to CMV potentially, whereas if they are all young plants and this is your first time growing then your soil may not be amended correctly for bananas. |
Re: Bunchy top paranoia
Thanks to everyone for your responses so far. Here are my responses to the comments:
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I trust your judgment that it's not bunchy top. Thanks for setting my mind at ease. Though much like bunchy top, it appears that CMV has no cure. Which brings me back to my original question. If I removed a banana that was infected with CMV, then touched mulch, and put that mulch on my new bananas, is that likely to spread the disease? |
Re: Bunchy top paranoia
If you had bunchy top and your neighbor has banana’s close to yours then she would have gotten it from you by now. As for transferring it from one plant to another with mulch. Your guess is as good as ours. When using tools and dealing with bug pest, fungus issues you can definitely transfer to another plant. But that’s trimming stuff with tools that will transfer it. Of course bugs also fly or crawl. Have you ever dug up one of the infected bananas and laid it on a tarp or something and gently looked over the rootball? You could even wash it off gently on a tarp to see if any bugs maybe got to the corm or roots. I had a large false banana decline on me one time out of nowhere. Dug it out and found holes all inside the stem. No other bananas affected. Could have been weevils which I doubt as didn’t effect anything else, maybe earwigs who knows.
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Re: Bunchy top paranoia
The other strong possibility I forgot to mention is herbicide damage. Have you or a neighbor potentially applied any herbicides near the plants within the last few months? I've had glyphosate drift damage bananas similarly before. Some herbicides such as dicamba are known to be highly volatile under certain conditions and can sometimes drift quite far from their original target and easily damage plants elsewhere.
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Re: Bunchy top paranoia
are you feeding them cold coffee straight from the pot?
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to beam: no, I am feeding them coffee grounds only. I keep a bowl on my counter and put coffee grounds, food scraps, shredded paper, etc. in there and bury under arborist chips when the bowl is full. |
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