Bonnie

Thank you, JP!

Does this one look like DC?

It has 2 very large blooms and I believe we had bananas on it 2 years ago.

JP

Could it be double mahoi?
Are the 2 flowers on the same pstem?
Did it have 1 or 2 flowers the first year?

Bonnie

I suppose it could be but I bought it as a DC. No only one flower previous times. There is 2 years between blooms. And this is the 3rd time.

They are very crowded in the greenhouse right now so it is hard to get between the large 25 gallon pots. We should be moving them outside soon and I can get a better pic them. All 3 times they came into bloom in March in the greenhouse and we cannot move them out until after April 15th or there about.
The bananas we small, maybe 3 to 4 inches long and very sweet.

Botanical_Bryce

Raja puri imo.

Bonnie

I think you may be correct because I looked on line and as I recall that is what the flowers look like. Time will tell.

Botanical_Bryce

I thought at first it was because the fruits were not fully out of the stalk. I went with super dwarf because it looked short in the photo. When you said 6 foot i knew right away it looked just like our Raja Puri. Further south of me the stalks are longer.

Bonnie

Botanical_Bryce, Does this look right for the Raja Puri?

Botanical_Bryce

Typical. The fruit is supposed to come out further but Raja Puri does that common where it remains in the stalk. Flower petals even curl up like that. I am pretty sure but some people can evaluate finer details than myself.

Bonnie

I was just starting to read about choking. Is this is what is happening?

Botanical_Bryce

Yes. If you read reviews on Raja Puri you will find it is a common issue. Our does it all the time. High fruit loss. I have one called pinapple that is supposed to be Raja Puri clonal mutation. Has less choking.

Bonnie

Oh no! Does that mean I have to remove the bud?

Bonnie

OK so curiosity got the best of me and I removed the leaf that was hiding the flower bud.
So some are growing out of the tree (called choking, I believe) It now looks like the flower bud is headed in a downward position.
Is the bloom salvageable?

Gabe15

Choking is common for any potted bananas while fruiting, not just 'Raja Puri'. To me it looks within the Cavendish realm but hard to say for sure without better photos of the whole plant.

An easy way to point us in the right direction is to post a photo of the pseudostem surface towards the bottom of the plant UNDER the outer-most sheath, you want a surface that has not been exposed to sunlight. Peel back an outer-most layer and take a look, if it is mostly a deep and or bright red, it is Cavendish. This trait can sometimes be somewhat reduced when grown indoors/greenhouse, but there still should be lots of red.

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

Bonnie

Any comments on what I should do with the ones growing out of the "crown"?

Gabe15

I would just let it do what it wants, not a whole lot you can do. If there are some fruit which are being smashed between leaf bases, you may try to maneuver the leaves slightly to give them some room, but you should be careful not to break the leaves, as that could negatively affect the whole bunch. If it were my plant I would just let it grow and try not to intervene too much. It looks like you've pretty much done this, and it looks ok. The leaves that are folded down will probably remain functional for the duration of the fruiting, but I wouldn't risk doing anymore.

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

Bonnie

So the stem underneath is a pinkish red. I have some super dwarfs I bought last year from Loggee's and their stem is the same pinkish red.
They have been in the greenhouse since last October and will soon be coming out.

On the other hand the one I posted about in this thread further up, the one that is super pot bound, it is white under the lowest leaf.

Gabe15

That pot-bound one is definitely not a Cavendish of any type. It's funny because I know this plant very well, it is extremely common, but I don't know what it is really, and it seems neither does anyone else. I could write a whole story on this plant, and maybe I'll do that one day, but for now you should know that it has the capacity to make good edible fruit, but often has trouble filling the fruit in a meaningful way, they are often very skinny, but can have a nice flavor, but not always. There are some theories I have about it, but it would take awhile to really sort it all out.

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

Hammocked Banana

Gabe please explain what you mean nobody knows what it is? Is it not a zebrenia/blood banana/Sumatran? Or do you mean people are unaware of the origin? Are the fruit seeded? I thought I could remember an old thread where you had a GN x Sumatran flower and it was seeded as well. Sometimes my memory fails me, especially when I learn more on here than I actually have experience with.

If it is a seeded variety, I was going to suggest separating the plant now, as it would give the pups a good chance to grow and the plant is mainly used for aesthetics. It also appears like the main flowering plant with the small pup attached are zebrenia, but the pstems towards the outside of the pot (on both sides) may be Cavendish, or some other edible variety, based on stem thickness. Thoughts?

Gabe15

I never had seed in this cultivar, but I may have posted about true M. acuminata subsp. zebrina containing seed in the past.

For how well distributed this plant is, there is really no well documented information on it. Mostly it has just been called "Zebrina" or "Sumatrana" or "Blood Banana", however those names, at least the first 2, are taken from 2 wild plants, Musa acuminata subsp. zebrina and Musa acuminata subsp. sumtrana, both are different from eachother, and neither are this plant. Bill Lessard claimed in his book to have created a hybrid between 'Grand Nain' and M. acuminata subsp. zebrina, they way he described what he did is not impossible, but so highly unlikely that it make's it seem like either a fake story or there was some mixup along the way, however we are left with this odd plant which seems to be exactly that, a Cavendish-wild M. acuminata hybrid, but this has not been verified to my knowledge, so I'm very hesitant to say that's what it is exactly without figuring out more about it.


I see what you are saying about the different plants in there, it does look like there are 2 different plants in that pot, Bonnie would have to verify this.

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

Bonnie

OK so this is the banana in the pot that is over crowded. Hammocked Banana suggested it might be a different variety. The pic is the one on the right side of the pot. The left side in the same pot looks different because it does not have the markings as the pic below. The left sided one is totally green.