Fruit After Cold
 

Whats the coldest temp your in ground bananas have endured and still produced fruit the next summer?

Re: Fruit After Cold
 

I'm waiting on my Dwarf Orinoco.. lol :^) Does my DC count? no etible banana's there..

Re: Fruit After Cold
 

Well, we were down in the low to mid-20's this past winter and my 'California Gold' has thrown a bud.

Re: Fruit After Cold
 

We got down to about 25F in January and I'm hoping for flowers on several plants, including California Gold, Belle, Dwarf Brazilian, Raja Puri, and an unknown variety (referred to in old discussions as "busy bee"), though we had cool temperatures through most of the spring and things have progressed slowly.

Re: Fruit After Cold
 

Thanks for the replies everyone. Were these unprotected?

Brent how were your other plants affected by the 20 something temps? Did you have any other p-stems that remained viable?

Dave, my plants had zero protection and psuedostems of 5' to 8' remained alive through temps of 25F. Although all leaves died, new leaves sprouted from the top this spring. Sometimes I need to peel away some dead material from the top as it dries up and doesn't allow new growth to push through.

I also have a San Jose (bought from pitangadiego) that was about 5' tall and came through the winter fine (though leaning since I weakened it last fall when I removed a pup). I need to check out it's fruiting height, though, before making a prediction on a bloom.

Re: Fruit After Cold
 

Thanks Harvey! I appreciate your input. Do they get any protection from the wind such as from a fence, trees or houses?

Dave

Re: Fruit After Cold
 

My bananas are about 25' from my house and don't really get any protection from the cold at all. Though they get some protection from the cold north winds via a windbreak of coastal redwood trees, our coldest nights don't have wind. The area where my bananas doesn't get much sunlight during the winter (in the shadow of my 2 story house) so it's probably one of the colder areas around my place.

Re: Fruit After Cold
 

Thanks!! :bananas_b

Re: Fruit After Cold
 

I think the only banana I lost outright was my potted M. laterita. Everything else in the ground survived, even though a few were killed back to the corms (such as Dw. Cavendish, SDC, Dw. Red, and Hua Moa). My 'California Gold' and several others (Raja Puri, Ice Cream) were all wrapped with frost cloth and had pretty good pstem survival. One note is that I did not protect my 'Orinoco' at all and it died back almost to the ground. They are easily in the 8-10' range already though.

Re: Fruit After Cold
 

Thanks Brent!

So in the low twenty range, several p-stems that were wrapped in frost cloth remained viable and those that were not died back to the ground or close to it?

Since the subject came up, do you recall what brand frost cloth you used and how many layers you applied it?

Re: Fruit After Cold
 

Well, 'Huo Moa' was wrapped and it was pretty much killed to the ground. Don't recall the brand name on the frost cloth-sorry. It was wrapped about two-three times.

Re: Fruit After Cold
 

Thermal Blanket, 3 oz. | Greenhouse Megastore

Is this the stuff ?

Re: Fruit After Cold
 

Yep, that looks like it.