Caloosamusa

Try Going Bananas dot com, I think Don carries them.

Lagniappe

I didn't see any on their list.

chong

Going Bananas has the regular Niño. According to their description, it grows to about 8' - 10' tall.

Lagniappe

Bad news, perhaps? The inflorescence on my D.Niño looks to be upright. I wonder if it is temporary, or if this is another plant altogether.
The first hand is visible now.
Notice the sodium toxicity on the leaves? This plant is very sensitive to salts. If I use any fertilizers or tap water the leaf edges will brown. Only when using rain water or r.o. will the leaves remain green (My tap water has very high sodium levels because the Sparta aquifer levels have dropped and salts are becoming more concentrated.)

Bananaman88

Nice pics, Pete. I think the bud will drop over soon.

Caloosamusa

The Nino is a Dwarf Banana. This diploid was used as a prodginator in the FHIA lines. Often when TC'd it does not reach full "normal" height.

Lagniappe

Are you referring to Niño or Dwarf Niño?
This is the description of the latter and mine very nearly conformed to these parameters:


Mature Height: 4-5'


Type: Dessert


Hardiness: Zone 8-10

This rapid grower is great in containers, where it will quickly grow to a height of about 4 to 5 feet. (In the ground, it can reach 10 feet.)

***The Niño, on the other hand, is said to grow to 18' .***

Caloosamusa

What is your source?

The papers I've read and people I've talked to state this cultivar grows 8 to 10 feet, in Florida. Mine are not that big yet. This cultivar is also known as Pisang Mas.

I am familiar also with the work done by Matsumoto, Caldas, and Yamamoto in their published "Response of banana dwarf somoclonal variants to benzylaminopurine" infoMusa Vol 15 no 1 & 2 June - December 2006.

These short forms may be the result of somoclonal variance resulting from tissue culturing.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but they were probably the same cultivar, but now as a result of tissue culturing there may be a significant difference.

Lagniappe

I've not researched this cultivar via any papers for several reasons. Firstly, I get bored easily and second, I have been able to find only scant information on the matter(though under the circumstances, I've become intrigued and shall do so forthright). Furthermore, I've found what I needed to know on Agri-starts and Encanto farms and very few other sites. Most have pointed back to Agristarts description. There are a few sites with different descriptions of Niño , but this was never my concern as I am only dealing with the dwarf. If this in fact how the dwarf came to be, it seems to be fixed and I will recognize it as being a separate entity from its predecessors. That is, until one of you are kind enough to point an unlearned hobbiest such as myself in the right direction.
This being said, I thank you for sharing this information (as I said, it is very tough to find) and hope to see some links to reports / papers. I would love to learn more about this, my favorite plant.

I've been searching for images of the Pisang Mas/ Niño flowers with no luck. Could any of you post some to this thread?
Here are the latest images of my plants flowers to compare:

Gabe15

It looks very stunted to me. I can try to find some photos later of a healthy inflorescence.

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

Lagniappe

Thanks,Gabe.
I thought as much but had nothing to compare it to.

chong

I've PM'd Pete before about this plant, and if I remember correctly, this plant came from Agristarts. If that is so, then it should follow that the plant will be small because that's how Agristarts describe this plant (4'-5' in pots, 8'-10' in the ground). There are Niños that are being sold as growing as much as 12 ft., but they don't call them dwarf.

I stated earlier that the name "Niño", as used to call the mini banana from South America, is merely the translation of the word "Baby" into English, and not necessarily the Niño Banana variety. In fact in the following article(referred to previously here) they report that Chiquita calls their "Baby Banana", "Mini Banana", and further reports that it is the Pisang Mas variety. In season . . . baby bananas | www.azstarnet.com ®

Here are photos of Pisang Mas inflorescence and fruit:


The above pictures are a little confusing because although both photos were under the caption "Pisang Mas", looking at the bunch with blossom, the hands are further apart than the one without the blossom. Either way, neither plant look very tall.


Fresh picked fruit:


Same hand - one week later:

Caloosamusa

Thank you Lagniappe and Chong!

Nino, my Child, not Baby in Spanish,(I cannot add the ~ above the second n) is a recent addition to my collection, and not from a TC source.

When I can I will get pictures of the parent plant.

Thank you Chong for the confirming information.

Lagniappe

And 'Pisang Mas' is a Spanish medical term for 'Enlarged Prostate'.
Sorry guys, I've been holding that one in (no pun)for some time .

john_ny

Caloosamusa (and anyone else that's interested): To get ñ, while holding down the Alt key, press, on the KEY PAD (at the right side of the keyboard) the numbers 0241.

__________________
John

Caloosamusa

Lagniappe, that is a great one!!!

Thank you John, I'm still looking for the keypad at the far right of the Keyboard (There is not one on mine) but I will figure out the variation that does. Thank you again.

Lagniappe

You can also use 164

chong

I guess niño is different where you are, because strictly speaking niño is the Spanish word for little/young "boy", and niña for little/young "girl". "El Niño", for example, is an esteemed name, we Catholics call the "Baby Jesus". My experience has been that references to a baby boy or girl, the words "niño or niña" are used. For "my child", we use "mi hijo" or "mi hija". And strictly speaking, "baby" in Spanish is "infante". However, I personally have not heard or even read that word used in anything but data reports to document births. I would hardly expect that "platano infante" can be used to describe a small banana fruit, but I can imagine it used to refer to a baby (young) banana plant.

John posted one way to type in "ñ", but here are a couple of other ways: for lower case - press Alt+164, then release; for upper case press Alt+165, or Alt+0209, then release. If you want to know what the shortcut key is to another accented letter in Word, just click the Insert tab then Symbol, then when the Insert window appears and you've found the symbol that you want, when you click that symbol, a note at the bottom of that window will tell you what the shortcut key(s) is(are) for that symbol.

Is you Niño the regular Niño, not dwarf? Who was your source for them? Looking forward to your photos!

chong

I think John is referring to the numeric pad on the right hand side of the keyboard. You don't have to use it, you can choose to use the numeral keys above the alphabet keys.

john_ny

Sorry, I thought every keyboard had it. Below, is what it looks like. I know that the numbers in the top row don't work. Pete is right. The number he gave works, also. I also noticed that, when you do this, you should have the Num Lock turned on.

[IMG][/IMG]

__________________
John