Dole baby bananas
 

Does anyone know what variety of banana are Dole's Baby bananas?

Also how cold hardy would they be?

Re: Dole baby bananas
 

5 Banana Varieties | SAVEUR The ones I purchased were ladyfingers.

Re: Dole baby bananas
 

If I understand correctly, all the ones sold as "Baby Bananas" in the US are varieties in the Sucrier subgroup (AA genome). In my experience (i.e., growing Pisang Mas), they are not cold hardy at all -- one of the least cold-hardy varieties I've tried.

Re: Dole baby bananas
 

How fast have they flowered and ripened for you? Thought I had read somewhere that they are simi-short cycle. Is this true with your experience?

Thanks :lurk:

Re: Dole baby bananas
 

Thank you all,

Venturabananas I consider you the most knowledgeable on the west coast.

My wife actually likes these baby bananas as well as my grandson who we watch.

She said I should try growing these baby bananas. I now live in zone 9b so it may not work unless they are 'babied'.
Assuming I could find the variety.

I am going to focus on shorter varieties, dwarf Orinoco, rajapuri, anything else people might recommend that have cold hardy traits. I am getting too old to deal with tall varieties.

Re: Dole baby bananas
 

They got set back so much by our relatively mild winter that they never flowered, so whether they are sort cycle or not doesn't matter! So I removed them to have more space for varieties that do well for me.

I think if you have warmer summers than I do, so the plants grow at fast rates then, and baby the plants during the winter so they are primed and ready to flower early in summer, you might be able make them work for you.

Re: Dole baby bananas
 

Thanks for the compliment. There are plenty of more knowledgeable folks on the west coast, they just don't post here often or at all.

For the shorter varieties, you didn't mention Dwarf Namwah or Dwarf Brazilian. In my experience, those two have the best combination of no babying needed to regularly produce good numbers of good tasting fruit. Little kids seem to love Namwah fruits. I think its because they are super sweet when really ripe. The grandsons of one of my friends just mow through them.

Re: Dole baby bananas
 

I now live in Temecula and its warmer (hotter) than Fallbrook. My pineapple plants have grown faster in the last 8 months than they did in a year in Fallbrook.!

I do have dwarf Brazilian and tall namwah, I need to get dwarf namwah.

I also have misi luki, ice cream, fhia-1, double mahoi, dwarf red, Cavendish, a couple of unknown varieties with the maroon streaks in them.

The only ones I got to fruit in Fallbrook (Rainbow) were dwarf Orinoco, ice cream, and rajapuri.

All my plants are in pots since we just moved in March. Except rajapuri.

They all made it thru the 3 inches of snow we got on 12/31/4 in rainbow.

I want to see how they all do this winter before getting too excited.

Eddie