asacomm

This is my Musa Hajaray of today, which is 12 months old from the pup with
the substantial growth period of 7 months, excepting the winter period of 5 months.
The height from the foot of the pseudostem to the botttom of the last petiole
is 120cm/abt3.6ft and the circumference of the pseudostem is 33cm/1ft.
This banana is potted in a 60L/15gal plastic container.

Does anybody know how big this banana will be? and thank you.

Dalmatiansoap

Your plant has a totaly green leaves?

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asacomm

Hi Dalmatiansoap,

Yes the plant has totally green leaves.
But what does it mean?

asacomm

Dalmatiansoap

Nothing, mine has wine marks like Sikkimensis, but beeing a hybride all options are open.

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Hammocked Banana

I think you mean the circumference is 33cm, not the diameter (the whole distance across a cross section of the p-stem).

d=c/pi = 33/3.14159 = 10.5cm

Judging by the spacing between petioles/hight-to-leaf ratio, shes gunna get tall!

PS this thread has finally pulled me out of lurk mode. Thanks!!!

asacomm

Hi Hammocked Banana,

Thanks for your correction. Yes, I meant the circumference of the p-stem
and not the outer diameter.

asacomm

Dalmatiansoap

Here is my Hajray of Today



One pup, cant be seen in pic but so fare so good. Howz your doing?

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asacomm

Thanks, Dalmatiansoap, for your pic.

My plant is sleeping in a sunny room as it has been exceptionally cold in
this winter, dropping into -5℃. Normally it seldom gets under freezing point.

Seeing the picture, it seems that it must be a liitle cold at this time of the
year as the leaves are torn and dried up.
So I wonder how is the weather in your area at this time of the winter.

Pancrazio

Hey asacomm, i can't help you on Hajaray (i don't own one) but some time ago i read this thread on this french forum where a guy was able to fruit it in Cannes. Maybe he is one of us on bananas.org and can add some comments, i managed to translate it a bit but i don't speak french.

Altitude tropicale

There are quite some pictures, but they are visible only to registered user (some time ago they were visible to everyone but the administrator of that forum must have closed the access, i can't figure why). I don't know if you will get precise misures but you can get an idea.

BTW, Dalmatiansoap, how cold was your location this winter? Here it has been a pretty hot winter (thanks to the continuate raining), but you Hajaray is in a really good shape, you must have had very few freezing nights! I wonder if this bananas is cold hardy as people say, but bunch apparently takes some time to mature (at least in cannes).

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asacomm

Hi panncrazio,

Thanks for your comment.
I just clicked "wunderground.com" and hapen to know that your climate
including temperatures is very similar to ours in a place near Tokyo.

Dalmatiansoap

We dont have many temp. below freezing point, one or two nights maybe this year (-1C) and none last year. Leaves are dried becouse of high winds we have here. Plant is unprotected and slow growing even during Summer, it produced only one small pup so fare. U can see aprox. temeperature chart for my region here:Split, Croatia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Pancrazio

@asacomm: nice then. We can share experiences. It is the hardest part for me, almost nobody writing on english forum have my climate, so there aren't lot of useful information. Just as example i'm in the same USDA zone of northern florida, but my yearly average is about 11C lower (wich makes my climate completly different from the south of USA). So far i haven't still found any bulletproof edible banana for all year growing in ground in my zone (but i must also admit that i'm very scared about the idea of leaving a plant in ground year long).

@Dalamatiansoap: Thank you for your information. Your climate is really mild! Seems a good place for bananas. Did you manage to obtain ripe fruit?

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Dalmatiansoap

Not yet. I have small bunch of Namwahs fighting with Winter and if they pass next 3 weeks I hope they will make it and I will maybe have few ripe bananas this Summer

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asacomm

Hi Pancrazio,

I think there are some candidates of bananas you can harvest in additon to
Musa Hajaray under your climate conditions.
They would be California Gold, Namwha, Orinoco, Ice Cream, all of which
I have already harvested so far on the ground with or without anticoldness
protections for winter.

Have you ever tried these bananas?

Pancrazio

Hi asacomm,
I have tried in 2011:
*Dwarf Cavendish,
*Dwarf Namwa
*Comune di Sicilia
*Rajapuri

By the end of the summer they were pretty big, and i overwintered them as follows;

*Dwarf cavendish, potted in a cold greenhouse (no sub freezing temperature), the pseudostem died completly. Nevermind, it was just for looks.
*Dwarf Namwah, first bare rooted in my car box, then after some decline (it may have been a too cold there), in my cellar. Overwintered fine but the extended rain in april (i guess) made it lose of the pseudostem - and some mistakes i made make me lose the plant in july (amazing, i know, but back then i was a complete newbie). Will try again this year with more plants to experiment in different places and methods. It tolerated the 4 months in my cellar bare rooted amazingly well.
*Comune di Sicilia, first bare rooted in my car box, then after some decline (it may have been a too cold there), in my cellar. Overwintered fine but the extended rain in april (i guess) made it lose of the plant.
*Rajapuri first bare rooted in my car box, then after some decline (it may have been a too cold there), in my cellar. There it rotted completly. A big disappointment. Some other italian guys that have tried it have been disappointed by that cultivar too (it died to the corm after a single night at -3C outside).

Last april (2012) i bought a Dwarf Orinoco wich is doing nicely in my cold greenhouse (no damage watsoever, aside some natural yellowing of leaves), but still, not any subfreezing temperature. I'll plant it in ground in april i guess.

I have a greenhouse, and that wuold be useful for growing, but the roof is very low (2,10m), so i'm forced to use it just for smaller plant; the bigger ones must be put in my cellar (bare rooted), or be capable of surviving outside (on a normal winter i'm capable of getting till -7C, this winter has been very mild and the coldest night has been -5C).

So for the next year i'm planning to try these:

*Saba - for growing outside in ground. Maybe i'll wait till it attains some size, but i'mm willing to give a try.
*Icecream - for growing outside in ground. Even if it isn't spectacularly big, i still think it is too big for moving, expecially if i'm forced to do it alone.
*Dwarf Namwah - in 3 location: outside with cover, potted in my greenhouse, bare rooted in my cellar: i want to see wich method works best.
*Dwarf Cavendish (for look, i'm not serious with this one)
*Dwarf Nino (potted all year long, it should be pisang mas and it is mouth watering)
*Praying hands, in ground, but i'll wait till it does attain some size: i have seen it surviving amazingly well to a nigh with -3C so it may be worth a shot
*Veinte cohol (if i'll be able to get this one).

I'm not going for california gold because it seems incredibly hard to get it in europe. The anecdotes on that one are true?

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asacomm

Hi Pancratio,

I have ever tried all the bananas you listed except Comune Sicilia which
seems to be a Sicilian banana.
Unfortunately, however, I failed overwintering with or without winter
protections outside on the ground, so I can understand your failure in
overwintering of these bananas because your climate zone seems to be
very similar to ours.

Saba can go through only in a green house, but not outside on the ground.
Ice Cream may be posssible outside on the ground if heavily protected.
D. Namwha is same as Ice Cream.
D. Nino: I have not tried yet.
Praying hand: same as Saba.
Veinte Cohol: I have not tried yet.

venturabananas

Don't bother with Veinte Cohol or D. Nino. They are not cold tolerant at all. You need a greenhouse in winter for these ones.

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Pancrazio

Thank you for your suggestions!
So you are saying that D namwah and Icecream are my best shot? Nice. Those seems very tasty too. I was thinking to use the cages made of straw and chicken wire but they seem to work just with basjoos (i haven't found yet an anecdote of someone using them successfully to overwinter edible bananas over extended time in winter).
The main issue, i guess, is the fact that the soil becomes very damp and cold, and stays this way for months. I don't think that we have a way to avoid it (a reasonable way, at least). Dryer/Hotter environment lets the plants survive, even in colder nights. This may be the reason why i see a big difference between the anecdotes i often hear on bananas.org on frost hardiness, and what i have seen on my plants.
I guess that in our climates the plant lose all of its roots anyway, so it maybe digging up isn't a drastic solution as it seems at the first glance. I don't know. But plants that grow taller than 2-2,5 metres are ouside of the range of what i think i can dig up.

@Venturebananas: yes i know, they are both AA. I think i will overwinter VC and Dwarf Nino in my house, maybe it's too cold for them even in there, but i can't know till i try. For sure i won't overwinter them outside, it's likely that they wouldn't survive even to our late autumn (but i have seen this paper from south georgia where they say that dwarf nino survived to severe cold (-6C) outside) (but still, maybe it isn't an issue of the absolute minimum temperature, but its duration).

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Dalmatiansoap

In my expirience there is no edible bananas that would take temps. below -2C without pstem damadge in climate like our. I would stick to C. Sicily couse it looks like it is an Orinoco sport and grows in Italy for ages. Some varieties of Namwah would also take a shoot and maybe some India cultivars everything else doesnt make much sence without protection.

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asacomm

Hi Pancrazio,

Now I do understand your headache issues including the soil problem.
Then I think you can plant them in a big container of cap.100lit or so, and
lay them under the eaves or some place where frost doesn't influence it.
Thus you can somehow control the soil condition and avoid frost damages.
This is how I often do for overwintering bananas, and the result was excellent.
But the biggest problem n this case is how you can transport the heavy pot
over there. But sure you can overcome it.