Dwarf Orinoco
 

Are there members in europe who have a dwarf orinoco and if so is he/she
willing to send me a pup???? Offcourse I will pay for all the costs.

Ron in the netherlands

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

Hey Ron, did you ever get a hold of a Dwarf Orinoco?

Mine fruited last November (!), sat on the plant for 9 months, and is finally ripening!

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

Hi Richard, yes I had one, it came from England but can't remember
who the seller was. Anyway, I never got it to flower and lost it
in the winter. I now only have Musa Sikkimensis, Basjoo and Ensete
Maurelii left, I bought me some slow growing blue Encephalartos species
and I am trying to collect different types of grasses.
It's good to see everything does well in your raised bed and it's always
interesting to read your posts....

Good luck with the Namwah, hope the Bananas will ripen for you in time...

Regards

Ron....

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

Jungleseeds in the UK are selling them.

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

My Dwarf Orinoco is sporting a flag leaf. Perfect time for the bunch to ripen over summer.

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

Flag leaf? What is is?

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

The one or two leaves before the bud comes out are usually smaller, and hence are called the "flag" leaf, because it signals a bud is coming.

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

Thanks Richard. I have wondered if there was a way to tell if the plant was going to flower. Very handy information.

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

Emerging tip of flower bud

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

The bud.

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

My Dwarf Orinoco crop this year is seeded! There are many people in the surrounding area that grow bananas, so I'm not sure what the pollen source was.

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

Any viable seed ;)

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

I see D. Orinoco all over the place. They're grown everywhere here in the valley. The other day I saw a bunch of fruit on one plant that was beginning to ripen.

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

I hope Ron founded his Orinoco. I'm already sure 99% my big banana plant is Orinoco(asked in the ID thread last summer about it).
My experience with this kind of bananas is the pups are too close to mother plant and its not so easy to make them to push roots after digging/cuting - they even haven't nor 1 root, or have 2-3 very short and propose still non-functional roots.
From 4 very big pups the plant produced last summer(and a half of dozen another little more) i have only one "for sure" established in a pot(i'm happy - they are 2, but one of them is too little) - the first big (4 ft) sucker, I cute off from the corm in July, died, but from his particular corm survived 1.5-2-inch "partition-corm" with 2 germ-pups. I haven't so big hope that they will survive in the middle of the summer, but put them in 22 cm pot(7-8 inches) and leaved it on a arbitrariness of Jully sun : ))
The next week there was nice surprise - it sprouted and began to rise. Now I have in that pot one "double" plant baby-Orinoco(already 1 ft tall!) and my "minimum plan" to produce another 3 plants of that kind for next summer is near to the success:08:

The other 3 pups destiny is: one give to the neighbor in a village(hope will establish well), another 2 are in the pots but to this moment they just stay in the condition I cut them respectively 2 and 1 months ago: they have green leafs but the spear doesn't grow or maybe 2-3 mms only.

So, my experience for my first summer about this banana(Orinoco): Extremely good grower(you can compare photos in my album here), just inloved in it, but pup propagation is not so easy like S.Dwarf Cavendish(ha-ha! :) ) or even Basjoo.
On the other hand Orinoco incur significantly better(much, much better!) the very hot and dry this-year summer condition in compare to Basjoo. Now will be interesting will he do the same the winter(we know the answer:waving:)

Sorry about this long thread :2738:
Just will put the photo of new Orinoco-double-pup in afternoon. :)

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

So:
The Orinoco in the beginning of May (i thought this is Basjoo :ha:)

And the same plant after 5 months

Just love this plant!!:08:

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

Well, first I don't know the source of the pollen, and second I'm not interested trying to sprout a potentially seeded banana. That might come as a shock to collectors of "everything Musa", but I only propagate edibles. :)

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

Those are not seeds, they are undeveloped ovules that are present in all edible bananas, they are just particular prominent in your case.

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

That answered my question, no viable seed :o

Re: Dwarf Orinoco
 

Thanks Gabe, always great to have an expert eye on the subject.

Notice the hard fiber running past the ovules almost to the tip? When I cut these fingers off, some of them had begun to "balloon" at the end to about a 2 inch diameter. These were nearly all fiber and no fruit. The others, like the one shown, contains maybe 1/2 edible fruit. What's going on?