musa with no roots help
 

hi guess what i recieved in the post today,i didnt know weather to laugh :ha:or cry? :2141:total shock,i have posted some pics in my gallery.yes i bet you are all asking ,where from jazz?,of course any banana with no roots,is always from thailand,the thing is will it do anything,the base is hard and the centre looks well ok but you judge,as i am no expert,it came with instructions,soak for 2 hrs,then plant in compost and coco peat,and in 2 wks it will start to grow roots:bed:what a joke,can anybody give me some advice on what to do weather to throw it or just keep watching the damm thing rot in its pot?help from one stupid banana lover:waving:

Re: musa with no roots help
 

Jazz when I separated pups last year I had one that was cut off with no roots. I put it in water and in a few days it started growing roots. I potted it up and it all but died back but started growing and made a new pup. I think their directions are probably a good way to save it and I bet it makes it just fine.

Michael

Re: musa with no roots help
 

even though there are no roots, it still looks healthy with no rot evident anywhere. i think it will grow back. there is a thread that talks about this situation somewhere around here. i would guess you could plant it as is, but i would check with someone else who would knows for sure.

Re: musa with no roots help
 

hello michael many thanks for your advice,so what im doing at the mo is soaking the base in water for 2hrs and then im going to pot it up in 50%compost 50% coco peat,feed it,but not to strong of a feed and water the damm thing and pop it in the greenhouse,and lets just see what happens,the guy who sold it to me said it was a black thai,but i wont know till the damm thing grows,will let you know,michael many thanks you have put my mind at rest for now, cheers:nanadrink:best wishes jazz:waving:

Re: musa with no roots help
 

hi thanks for your advice,i hope it does grow,back,will let you know the outcome thanks:nanadrink:

Re: musa with no roots help
 

Ough, nothing to warry. It will root and regrowth in 2 months.
:woohoonaner:

Re: musa with no roots help
 

Jazz please keep us posted on this either way, My own experience is that the plants I got with little or no roots did not do well one Ae Ae died. I've been tempted to order some ebay plans from Thailand but have not heard good things about the results. Hope yours do good.

Re: musa with no roots help
 

I try to remove all of the roots when I ship. I also remove them when transplanting in my own yard! I wondered about this after veiwing an article (Posted here somewhere) about banana culture in S.America. They remove all the roots and every bit of p-stem,leaving only a nice,clean bulb.
I found that the corms put out a better root system and grow faster after rooting than if I had left the old roots on. It doesn't take long at all. I bought a corm from Thailand recently and it filled a 3 gallon pot with roots in about 3 weeks. It's growing very well now. I also recieved a Chini Champa with a lot of roots and a few leaves, it had rot issues and died. If I had cleaned it up, removing all of the old roots and p-stem, I'm confident that it would have made it. I was caught up in the thinking that it was growing well, but it had been traveling for a while.
I do leave the entire root system and leaves intact on small plants! I only remove the roots on a baseball sized corm or larger.

You know thos bins at the garden centers that are full of Elephant ear bulbs? That's the way they were storing the corms at the plantation in that article.

Re: musa with no roots help
 

Jazz you've done it again, you've suprised me. Where oh where do you find things like that? Is it the Thai ebay? I'd love to know your secret.

As for the no roots thing, corms are essentially startch stores that the plant will use to regenerate itself when it comes out of dormancy. So I see no reason why it shouldn't start to grow roots and then sprout. Just keep it well drained to prevent rot.

Re: musa with no roots help
 

Here's a link to the paper. They've changed it a bit, and I'm not seeing the bins of corms on there, but you can see that they not only clean the corm completelt of leaf and root, but they also devide them before planting into grow-out beds (pre-field).
Manual Técnico para la Propagación de Musáceas Revista Digital CENIAP Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Agropecuarias de Venezuela

Re: musa with no roots help
 

Yep that looks perfect, exactly how a banana should be shipped, especially coming from an area that grows lots of banana. Having no roots or leaves is no problem, there is enough starch reserve in the corm to allow it to grow new roots and leaves very quickly. Banana roots only last about 4 months anyways, they are constantly growing new roots. It's much better they cut off all the roots and leaves and clean the plant very well then accidentally send something like nematodes in the roots or a soil borne pathogen that could potentially kill all your plants.

Re: musa with no roots help
 

Jazz, I would add some Perlite to the mix. Just to open it up a little. Do you have a heatmat you could pop it on?

Glad you have managed to track down one of the Bananas you were after:bananas_b

Re: musa with no roots help
 

that corm looks good
the paper that lagniappe posted in english
http://http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ceniap.gov.ve%2Fceniaphoy3%2Farticulos%2Fn4%2 Ftexto%2Fgmartinez.htm&sl=es&tl=en&history_state0=

Re: musa with no roots help
 

Completely normal, and you have yourself a nice, big, healthy-appearing corm! This is a standard practice for shipping bananas. I keep roots on some smaller plants, just because some people freak out when they don't see roots. Now, if that was a Sugar Maple...we might have a problem, lol!

Bananas have corms, much like Gladiolus or Crocus do. If you've ever bought a Gladiolus in the store (or nursery), wasn't it just a corm, with no roots? Same principle with Musa.

Good luck with that banana!

Frank

Re: musa with no roots help
 

These had very few if any roots. Bought in late October--first freeze in mid-November. All but the Goldfinger (FHIA 1)survived---it was in a plastic pot over the winter with some protection.

Re: musa with no roots help
 

kudos on petes advice....i think i should have done that to my thailand corm as well maybe it wouldnt have rotted..cause it seems reasonable that if the roots rot thats where the rot begins and will probably kill the plant(silent killer) :P

Re: musa with no roots help
 

Your corm is lovely. Remember: bananas are not birch trees!

Plants with corms, bulbs, tuberous roots, etc. are often shipped that way. Think of what you get when you buy tulips, daffodils, crocus, gladiolus, elephant ears, "seed" potatoes, etc. -- if you get one of them with some shaggy, dried old roots left on it, they don't come back, new roots will be grown.

Damaged roots are a site for infection to enter the plant. Just as well to remove them as they (roots) often die from the damage anyway. Plant your corm where you want it to grow, or in a pot that you will leave undisturbed. Lightly water and leave it alone.

If you put the corm in water before planting, get it into soil before new roots start out. You will likely damage the tender new roots in planting and you have set the plant back by that much.

Re: musa with no roots help
 

thanks frank totally understand where you are coming from:nanadrink:

Re: musa with no roots help
 

thanks jk,for you advice:nanadrink:

Re: musa with no roots help
 

Farmers in Hawaii trim the corms completely to remove all roots when planting a new field. The corms are as bare and white as a baby's behind. The plants do fine.

Plus, when one exports live plant material such as bananas to a foreign destination, it might be a quarantine requirement to trim the roots from the plant in order to remove soil particles.

Don't worry, be happy. :waving:

Scot