FHIA-25 alternatives
 

In 2002 or 2003 I was in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and had chance to visit FHIA and speak with a number of people there. At the time I was interested in banana plants for subsistence farmers, and the FHIA-25 came highly recommended. I believe it's what DR Phillip Rowe was working on at the time of his death. The FHIA-25 had or has many great qualities that would make it ideal for small-scale subsistence farmers. Unfortunately when it was tried in the field, the flavor was less than satisfactory (once it turned yellow I was told it tasted "soapy").

I remember stopping by a home in El Progreso that had 15 or so banana plants around it, and the people who lived there said that they never had any problems with hunger as they always had cooking bananas.

If someone was trying to duplicate that, in Central America or elsewhere, does anyone have any suggestions as to which varieties of banana might be worth looking at? FHIA or otherwise? At the time I was mostly interested in Africa, and that may have been why I was steered towards the FHIA-25. I am just starting to look at things again, and when I get done I hope to have things narrowed down to 4-6 varieties of banana or plantain that no matter where you where in the humid tropics at least one of those varieties would be appropriate for your area. Thanks

Re: FHIA-25 alternatives
 

Hello,
Specifically, what qualities are you looking for in a banana? Cooking or ripe eating (or both), disease resistance, hardiness? Certainly FHIA-25 is excellent in terms of bunch size, drought tolerance and as a cooking banana but is not meant to be eaten as a ripe banana. The 'Pacific Plantain' is a good dual purpose variety. It produces large fruit and can be cooked or eaten fresh-ripe. FHIA-21 would be another good dual purpose selection and is resistant to black Sigatoka.
Cheers

Re: FHIA-25 alternatives
 

I'm sorry but I do not have the knowledge you seek BUT I wanted to welcome you here and say what a great humantarian project.

One more thing, with all the members here how in the heck was Bananaguy still available!

Re: FHIA-25 alternatives
 

First thanks for the replys:) What I am interested in is which plant or plants would contribute the most to food security, and that's too open of a question to be of much use.

FHIA has a process to turn a single corm into multiple plants, I don't remember now if one corm would give you six plants after 18 months, or thirty plants after 18 months, I had not thought about it until recently and no longer remember the details, but they had some process of rapid multiplication. There is an Israeli company that has a plant on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula that works in conjunction with FHIA , producing banana and other tropical plants via in vitro. So in theory, you could ship bananas grown in vitro any place in the world, once they get there, grow them out, and then using the FHIA process you could turn 2000 or 20000 plants - whatever quantity you want to start with - into 5 or 10 or 30 times that number. Of course doing that would quickly lead to problems associated with monocropping such as disease tolerance, etc. But thinking along those lines, if you wanted every family in a village to receive and grow six banana plants for their own use, speaking of smallholder subsistence farmers here, what would be some good varieties to start looking at.

IIRC the FHIA-25 is used mostly just as a beer banana in Uganda, and has never gained a wide acceptance there and never took off in Honduras either. Initially I was very interested in the FHIA-25 as it had so much going for it (disease resistant , dwarf so more resistant to wind damage, long life in the green state, and so forth), until I got feedback on the I remember the FHIA-21 looked very good, as did the FHIA-17. I think the FHIA-17 was at the time more interesting because it was acceptable both as a cooking banana and as a desert banana, so it could be used either way, depending upon cultural preferences. Of the plantains the FHIA-21 was at that time the one I was most interested in. Bananas were a side issue, and I never fully followed up on things unfortunately.

Well, I suppose likely I need to do some more background research and then come back with some more specific questions. I will certainly take a look at the Pacific Plantain.

When I got back from Honduras the last time, I had a folder with a picture of a FHIA-25 from a test garden on it, and a couple of people who could not remember my name called me "Bananaguy" because of the picture, so I typed it in and .....:)

Re: FHIA-25 alternatives
 

Bananas/plantains are integral to food security world-wide and will continue to increase in importance. Continued technological development for efficient multiplication and distribution is key to reducing costs and increasing availability of disease free material.
Welcome! Cool bananas.