JoeReal

I have been keeping track of this site where the words 'OUT OF STOCK' stayed on for almost a year. Now they're stocked:

http://www.logees.com/prodinfo.asp?number=R1973-4

momoese

I remember looking at that same page and same picture about 6 months ago thinking I would like to grow one of those! I'm to the point now that finding space is much harder then finding the plants! You think they are TC plants? I wonder how long a dwarf Lady Finger TC would take to mature?

JoeReal

IF grown alternatingly between indoors during winter or extremely hot days and outdoors during warm days, would fruit within 3 years. If grown just indoors potted, in a sunroom or bay window with access to sunlight, would take perhaps 5 years.

momoese

I have a great idea! How about you sell me a pup off the plant you buy so I don't have to wait so long for fruit!

bigdog

Thanks for pointing us over there, Joe. I went ahead and ordered one. Lady Fingers supposedly ripen and mature quickly, and that's important for me in zone 7. Good grief! Where am I going to put it?? Thank goodness it's small!

GATrops

I got one of them a few months back and put it into a 25 gallon container just to see how it does in a pot. It has grown very well and shows much better growth habits than the Super Dwarf Cavendish (no signs of choking, good leaf internode distance) but no bloom so far. It is about 3.5 feet tall at present and looking good. I'll keep the group posted on its progress.

Richard

AnnaJW

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GATrops

Go for it Anna! I did that 2 years ago and have never been happier. I now can cut the grass in <10 minutes with a weedeater (no kidding).

Gabe15

Ladyfinger is not an actual type of banana, as compared to 'Cavendish' or 'Orinoco' or anything else. Ladyfinger bananas are ones with small fruit, there are various ladyfinger groups with small bananas, but there is no one ladyfinger banana. It could be a 'Dwarf Nino' to a 'Dwarf Namwah'. My 'Rose' fruited in exactly 2 years in a container in a sunroom, i dont think any banana would need more than 3 years in a container if well taken care of with plenty of food, water and light.

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JoeReal

I would agree if they were from pups, but these are tissue cultured, even in the best of care, the fastest time to fruit is 3 years in my zone, and that included winter care indoors in pots during their first few feet of trunk height.

Gabe15

oh ya.....those damn TC's!!! good call I forgot what its like to grow those things, I dont think ive tried to grow a TC plug into a large plant in at least 2 years, but i dont think i ever got very far anyways.

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

MediaHound

SOLD!

Just ordered two of these dwarf lady fingers.

Thanks for the lead, Joe.


And, by the way, you guys..
if you ever need to watch a webpage for changes and be notified when it updates, this is a very helpful service
http://www.changenotes.com

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AnnaJW

GATrops, (and everyone)

I actually have started filling in some open spots around our patio (slab) with banana plants. The grass isn't doing well there anyway, for some reason. Probably because I need to plant banana's!
And as soon as I convince my husband that this Lady Finger is essential, hopefully I can get one!

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Living my life in MMORPG's

JoeReal

Whatever the proper species name of that thing, it is out of stock temporarily!

Naming of banana cultivars has always been problematic, messy and chaotic. And it will be for some time to come.

Whatever that variety is, I am dying to try one that can fulfill the original claims of that dreaded super dwarf cavendish. A truly fruiting edible bananas in pots. And this seem to fit the bill, no matter what the true name of that plant is.

It is not Dwarf Brazilian, or dwaf cavendish, from the looks of it.

JoeReal

About naming chaos? You can try this best knowledge site for starters:
http://www.inibap.org/pdf/IN010189_en.pdf

Nothing else beat them for the best available info on banana cultivars and their names.

You miss the important point that I mentioned, as it is the plant and its performance that I would like to test and not care for the name at the moment. The name can be resolved later when the naming chaotic dust have settled. Meanwhile I will be happy to share the info of the actual performance of the plant which is more important than the name at the moment.

banana_fun

Thats a great link there Joe! All the info ANYONE would need to know.

JoeReal

I can't blame anyone for the current chaos, plus that the less knowledgeable propagators often coming up with their own names and the marketing group thrown all into this melee.

One of the major sources of naming chaos is our perception of what constitutes a cultivar and the lack of international standards for naming of complex interspecific hybrids. In most cases, we have been at a loss when it comes to naming hybrids. Most bananas are hybrids, in fact almost all of the edible bananas are complex polyploid hybrids originating from the acuminata and balbisiana groups. But we are able to propagate these hybrids vegetatively and they would come true to type and thus somehow fit some rudimentary definition of a species but definitely distinct cultivars. How does one name them taxonomically these polyploid hybrids of M. acuminata and M. balbisiana? We have no problem with acuminata alone nor the balbisiana alone including their sport mutations but with complex hybrids, such as a hypothetical one that I concocted by hybridizing the regular acuminata primitive with an existing AB hybrid then backcrossing that with balbisiana type, shall we name them "Musa acuminata x (balbisiana x acuminata) x balbisiana 'Joe banana'"? If you are not sure about that, I can be sure that I will be able to propagate it vegetatively if I ever come up with it.


http://www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au/Sorting/Musa.html


Amazingly, the same chaotic sientific naming of Citrus species has come to light also. Latest DNA analysis would show that all known citruses can be traced back to only about 3 species and in fact almost all of the commercially grown citruses are in fact hybrids of the three citrus species. One thing peculiar about citruses that has fooled our "taxonomic" forefathers is that most of them would come true to type when propagated by seeds, tricking our early growers that they are distinct species when in fact they are really hybrids. Most citruses have polyembryonic seeds with prodominantly nucellar embryos. The nucellar embryos are like a folded in cellular-tissues of the female parent that has reverted into its most juvenile form. Thus when you plant these, even if the citruses were pollinated by another, it would be hard to look for a hybrid, most likely you will get the true to type. Citruses as well as bananas can hybridize naturally, and some of these natural hybrids will outgrow the other embryos aand can then produce true to type hybrids in the wild, tricking our early taxonomic workers for separate species, thus we have chaotic naming as well. With genetic testing, it may help resolve these issues but I believe it will be more questions than answers, more chaos than order, until the scientific community knows how to deal with the proper naming of complex hybrids.

Todate we even have complex interspecific hybrids such pluots, peach cots, apriums, plum and cherry hybrids, what would be the proper scientific name for these when most often it is not a simple 50-50% genetic intermix and could span several species mix. I haven't ran any scientific articles discussing these complex hybrids as separate species. And we now have genetically engineered crops where we splice a gene from one organism to another and could end up in bananas.

momoese

Noooooooo

MediaHound

My two "Dwarf Lady Finger" arrived today in great shape.

Thanks again, Joe!

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Apologies in advance if I am slow to reply to your PM. I suggest posting in the forums for support if you need something urgent.

PaulOdin

GMF bananas? Among processed foods, 60% of those sold in America have had genetically modified content since about 1990. It must be higher now. Congress never authorized GMF for human consumption, so the patent office did it on their own initiative.
On the other hand... bright purple edible bananas? The hobby side could be interesting. Most of my problem w/ GMF is that the genetic range of crops becomes more narrow, flavors are lost, and there is greater susceptability to world wide, crop specific, die offs... sorta like we already have w/ bananas?
When you get down to it, tissue culturing is potentially almost as bad as GM... once you get past the "Killer Banana that Stalked New York" sorta stories.