palmtree

Hi everyone!
Usually my Ice Cream banana is a good grower, but not this year for some reason. We have had a good share of warm weather, especially recently with temperatures in the 90s for 3 days, but there has been no growth on my ice cream banana. I dont see any signs of new leaves coming up at all.
Compare this to my Saba which is in less sun and gets less heat and it has already grown an entire leaf this season (it has 3 leaves total now) with another on the way. Why is my ice cream banana growing so slow. All my other bananas are growing and Im getting worried that something is going on with it even though there have not been signs of decline, its just not doing anything!
Heres a pic from about a week ago. The plants in this pic have all grown a little since this pic with the exception of my banana!

Any help is really appreciated. I added some worm castings about 3 days ago, so far I dont see that helping or hurting. I bought some balanced fertlizer that I may use also.
I wanted it to get big (at least 13 feet) since its already 6 feet tall and it's not even filled out yet. Dont think It will be getting tall this year, maybe at this rate it will grow a new leaf by July 4th!

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Location: New York City, zone 7b

caliboy1994

Check for rot. I had the same situation with the main p-stem on my Mysore mat, and it turned out that the entire p-stem had rotted off of the corm. Something similar might have happened here.

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Kostas

I second what Andreas said! Every time growth stops in a banana of mine while the temperature is in acceptable range for growth,its rot,root or corm rot. Stop watering completely till you see new growth. It wont get hurt more and it will have a chance to get rid of the rot if not too far gone.

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TRAY

Hit it with some "Superthrive" and a liquid fert like "Protogrow" Natural Fertilizer - New Natural Fertilizer Makes Plants Grow Like Crazy which ain't cheap (but is a good product) which might give it a good kick in the ass to get it going!

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palmtree

Thanks Andreas and Konstantinos, I did check for rot, but I did not check thouroughly so I will go check right now much more carefully and see what I find! There is a lot of rain in the forecast so if it's rot it may be a gonner.

I think I might be seeing a start of a new leaf coming up, still a few days from being sure. Maybe it recovered from whatever problem it had and is now growing back. I really hope!

Thanks Tray! I think this banana is going to need a really good kick in the a*s to start growing so I will definitely look into those.

I will keep up all updated on the progress and any more advice is always appreciated! ")

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Location: New York City, zone 7b

Richard

Superthrive is an expensive way to buy seaweed, alfalfa, and barley extract, all of which are plant hormones (not nutrients).

Protogrow is an expensive way to buy a mix of seaweed extract and fish emulsion. The website for Protogrow contains numerous errors and misleading statements. One chilling example is that Jerry Greenfield states that the numbers on fertilizer labels are percentages by volume, but in reality they are percentages by weight.

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TRAY

Superthrive is concentrated and a small bottle goes a long way and in my opinion does better then just buying those u mentioned. The point of me bringing it up is for the hormones. If it does have root rot this stuff "might" help with the damage buy promoting new root growth.

Protogrow is also concentrated. Not gonna say you are wrong, but i did try it, i like it, and think it does good on all kinds of plants.
On Richards behalf, i will say these are not "miracle" products, just suggestions that may or may not help with your plants!
It's your plant, your money, your choice!

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kaczercat

as much as I don't want to say it. It might be like most people are saying I had the exact same thing happened to my Beautiful Kru! I hope you can salvage it!

Kru just after planting end of April 2011 ( it wasn't growing for a few weeks before ) but after planting it looked healthy right? 2 1/2 weeks later I pull on the p-stem and it just comes off and nothing but mush.

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Matt

palmtree

Thanks Matt, I hope your wrong for the sake of not having to go through that! I think (really not sure) that I'm seeing a new leaf push up now slowly but surely. We are in for some real June Gloom this week, I dont know if it will pull through if it really is rot.

Last year my saba rotted partially on the bottom and it fell over, but we had such a hot June that it recovered without skipping a beat.
Looks like I might be having a similar problem with my ice cream, but this year we dont have the hot weather it needs.

Your Kuru looks so similar to my ice cream banana in that pic. They both have the same number of leaves and are about the same height! I'm guessing that you never had any pups come up again after the rot?

Thanks for the info Tray. It sounds like superthrive is a really good thing to buy for my ice cream. I'm going to order some now and if there is anything left of my banana in a week then I'll give it some superthrive!

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Location: New York City, zone 7b

Richard

the web site advertises the opposite.

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TRAY

The paragragh below (Taken from the website) is what i based the comment on when i said concentrated.

Best of all, ordering is fast and reliable. ProtoGrow" is also affordable, only $29.97, (plus $14.95 shipping) for a one quart bottle of powerful concentrate which makes 24 gallons!

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Richard

Check out this video, where the owner of the company claims that the best fertilizers are low concentration! Video: How to Read a Fertilizer Label – Grow Like Crazy

By the way, he makes an error in his video by stating that the numbers on fertilizer labels are percentages by volume.

Now if one quart makes 24 gallons, that is very weak. A standard $7 quart of fish emulsion makes 192 gallons (one teaspoon per gallon of water).

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palmtree

GOOD NEWS!
I got back from a short vacation (4 days) and although I was expecting half wilted plants that got no water, what I got was a new leaf on my ice cream banana! Its almost completely unfurled. Im very happy that it finally decided to grow. I dont know what delayed it, but I guess the seaweed and kelp fertlizer helped. I still plan on giving it superthive and fertlizing the heck out of it, but at least now there is some hope that it will grow well this season.
I will post a pic soon and keep you all updated!
Thanks for the help!

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Location: New York City, zone 7b

natej740

Palmtree I was having the same problem with my ice cream....I had it dormant for the winter and potted it up beginning of March and within the week just put out it's first leaf...it took almost 4 months! I think what helped it was finally putting it in the ground and watering it daily and fertilizing weekly like I would have if it was growing. I guess it just needed to build up it's root system first. The main plant and the 1 foot pup started growing at exactly the same time. It has about 7 foot of pstem and is 12 foot to the top of the leaf...I can't wait to see how big it will get now that it's finally growing...crazy both of ours started growing about the same time.

palmtree

It is really interesting that ours started growing at the same time! Last year my Ice cream banana was the fastest of the bananas and my Saba was the one that took a while to start growing (it grew fast in the heat though!). This year my Saba has been growing really fast (already made 2 full leaves and has 4 total) and my ice cream banana is the one that's disappointing me.
But now that it made 1 leaf I think both of ours will be growing much faster now!

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Location: New York City, zone 7b