natedogg1026

Taking opinions here. The mother plant was wintered under the house and is an Orinoco that stood about 6'. It was planted about 6 weeks ago and has since shot up a nice pup which has almost surpassed the mom. The parent has struggled terribly with our cool spring and soggy conditions. It has been cut back several times due to rot and as you can see, it can barely get a healthy leaf out. So,with that said. Should I wait it out and try to get two plants or chop mom to give full growth to the pup? Do you think the gain will be big if I cut her. Never been in this situation before having to debate slaughtering one of my nana's. What ya think? I would sacrifice my number of nana's if I'd get some height in return.-Nate

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Banana's are a safe addiction. Right?Maybe I need classes.

xavierdlc61887

i say cut her till shes about the size where she started growing maybe that will help her generate better leaves....in all i say cut her down but not out

keep trying she will come through never give never surrender :P

momoese

One thing to keep in mind is that it's not unusual for the first pup to rapidly outgrow the mother in height. It looks like you have done a nice job removing the rot so it can only get better from here. Let it grow I say.

xavierdlc61887

i take back my answer yes leave it

Lagniappe

Definately let it grow . It is ,at least, getting fed by those scraggeldy leaves now. Your Maurelii may gobble up that portion of your garden before you know it though.

natedogg1026

Yea Pete your right. Luckily I just built a new bed last weekend and the Maurelii will be moved there.

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Banana's are a safe addiction. Right?Maybe I need classes.

banana berserker

can't you just seperate the mom from the pup?

pitangadiego

As the President of the "Never give up" club, I would give it a little more time. It doesn't look like it is really going to thrive, however, it might produce more pups.

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hydrojeff

real nice siam Nate, do you bring it in the winter or cover it?

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mskitty38583

well nate, being new to the whole nana thing, i would say leave it to grow. if you get pups i would move the pups when they get bigger if you are having problems with rot. jmo

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bencelest

My first thought was to leave it alone as I have done with my nanas due to winter blues.Now that the weather changed they are all thriving very nicely.

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natedogg1026

Jeff, My Siam was wintered in the greenhouse. It was about four foot when I took it out but was very skinny and almost snapped. I closed my eyes and chopped all the leaves off. It grew back stronger and is on it's fourth leaf. Can't wait to see how big it gets.

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Banana's are a safe addiction. Right?Maybe I need classes.

Banana Mike

Here's my 2 bits worth.

I think the pup is feeding, big time, off the parent corm. The parent is going into decline. I think it wants to die. Maybe somethings affected it, maybe not. But corms are hard to persuade and this one seems to want to put all it's juice into the pup.

Now the pup, and yes, it's a fine looking pup, is certainly more than ready to go it alone. Heck, it was ready to go it alone when it hit 2 ft tall. Certainly at a slower rate, but ready just the same.

I'd say you have some options. If want the pup to get as big as possible quickly, I'd cut the parent to the ground.

If you want to try and save the parent, I'd separate the pup. I'd be interested to see what happens in this case. I think the parent is a goner. But who know, it might recover and be a nice match to the pup.

Another idea, if you where the adventurous sort, and honestly I don't think it would be too big an adventure, would be to chop the parent to the ground and separate the pup. I wish I had more bananas to experiment some of these ideas with. But I think by doing that, you set the pup off to grow on it's own. The parent corm, now with no Pseudo-stem or pup, is just thinking survival.

I think that there's a fair chance you might induce more pups to shoot out of the parent. And if that doesnt happen, you might give the corm a chance to recover, dig it out and attempt a corm division...

Either way good luck with your bananas. I live in San Antonio and it's been a nightmare with the heat! Ouch!!!