Blueb

Hi everybody,

I’m new to this forum – as a registered member – but I’ve been reading it with interest since a long time. So thank you for welcoming me here. I take the opportunity of this (very) long post to introduce me briefly - although we are not in the dedicated topic.

I finally decided to step in, because I think this community could help us achieving an ambitious study we are trying to set up presently. I am working at CIRAD (France), and have been curating Musa collections for a long time, in Cameroon and Guadeloupe. Since four years now, I’m based in Montpellier in a team addressing questions upon the history, diffusion and evolution of bananas. We are also working with specialists from other disciplines such as linguists, anthropologists and archaeologists, to help us understand the global history of man and bananas across the years. Presently, we are trying to check if niche species modelling could be relevant to find/understand the pathways or obstacles that may have ruled the diffusion of banana from South East Asia to Africa, and across Africa. The idea is simple: we record precisely the places where a particular type of banana is growing today, and we correlate these observations with climate data found in global world climate databases. From these correlations, and knowing what the evolutions of past climates were since 5000 years, we expect to draw maps of possible historical pathways for bananas diffusion. These results will then need to be validated by human historical data including languages, culture etc.

So, what we need, to feed the model, is a collection of well-defined banana points across the world. What I mean by well-defined point is a place where a banana tree has been recorded and determined (up to the subgroup level), and with accurate geolocation data (GPS or precise address, a village for example). But of course, some points are more significant than others. For instance, recording a Cavendish plant in a large plantation in Ecuador, Costa Rica or Ivory Coast, or under a greenhouse in the Canarias, won’t tell us much. Because plants here are irrigated, fertilized, spread… and hence grown in rather artificial environmental conditions. Instead of that, knowing that a plantain is grown on the side of a road somewhere in the lowlands of the Littoral region of Cameroon, or in the heights of Bujumbura, really is accurate information. So how can we get such data? We have already started to explore some tracks. First, we are analyzing the existing literacy such as collecting mission reports, or diversity papers and it’s a promising source. But not all countries are covered, and information is often incomplete (botany and/or geography). Recently, I have started to explore such services as Google Earth, Flickr etc. I must say that the first issue is to find photos really displaying bananas. But there is no convenient search method to do so, and pictures are often unusable: blurry, backlight, no bunch, too far… In fact, the most effective way to find these points is certainly to ask people who are already interested in bananas. And that’s where we are now!

So I am quite sure that some of you could help us in that way, and I hope I am in the right place to ask that. The idea would be to get from you, some photos, along with the desired information: a classification of the plant up to the subgroup (the name of the clone will be rather helpless in such a study), and a geographical location of the plant (GPS or village). We are focusing on the most common cultivated subgroups of bananas, because we need to get enough points in each subgroup to run the model. Hence, we are mainly searching for bananas from the following subgroups: AAA [Cavendish, Gros-Michel, Mutika (East African Highlands Bananas)], AAB [Silk, Pome/Prata, Plantain, Popoulou/Maia Maoli], ABB [Bluggoe, Pisang Awak].

I want to thank in advance all the ones willing to help us gather these data. I will keep you regularly updated with the advancement of the project, and its results. Will the study succeed, we will publish the results in a free journal, acknowledging at best the contributions of everyone. I am already willing to hear from you about the idea, and will answer any question you might have.

Best,

jjjankovsky

There have been a few posters on this site that actually live in regions where bananas grow, but the bulk of the folk on this site seem to be trying to grow bananas in nasty climates for musas.

I'm in SW Mexico in intensive plantation country so, my info will only give you the strays from the locally popular cultivars.

Good luck.

Hamakua

Hello,
Do you still have Iholena Ula Ula in your collection in Cameroon ?

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Currently Growing:
Blue Java, FHIA 01, Gros Michelle, Dwarf Orinoco, Maoli Ele Ele, Maoli Manini, Maoli Dwarf Kaualau, Putalinga Kula, Iholena Lele, Iholena Ula Ula, Iholena Iholena, Iholena Kapua, Unknown purple leafed Iholena, Tuu Ghia, Tagomor, Luba, Kokor, Vunumami, Hapai

Blueb

Thanks jjjankovsky,

You're perfectly right about the main locations of posters. But i also know that we banana fans can't help taking pictures of banana trees when we travel across the world. And that is where I hope some folks here can help!

Blueb

Hi,

I have left the Cameroon collection more than 20 years ago, and at that time, Ula Ula was not present in the collection. But I have just checked a 2014 listing of the collection, and yes, it seems to be there.

Blueb

I'm thinking again about your last sentence. I'm not sure such info wouldn't be usable. The idea is to record the places where banana trees may grow "naturally" (or the more "naturally" possible), to correlate it with the local climatic characteristics. So if there exists some kind of local fields, road borders or backyard gardens in which people grow their Cavendish, plantain... (don't know what people use locally there. Pelipita, Silk ?) in a nearly organic way, it could give some useful points.

Gabe15

Hopefully you have already come across this catalog as it is in MusaLit, but in case not, check this out from my trip a few years ago to the Solomon Islands: Bananas of the Solomon Islands: A catalog of the banana plants seen in the islands of Guadalcanal, Makira and Malaita

I might have some more detailed location data I could dig up if needed, you can private message me if you would like to discuss further.

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

Blueb

Hi Gabe,

Yes of course. I know your very valuable work! We have been using all the docs that are included in the collecting mission repository of Bioversity. It is a very good basis. The problem is that people are often recording rare types during these missions, and it is difficult to gather a sufficient number of points from the same botanical subgroup.