nph

I just noticed today my Dwarf Namwah after spending a long cold winter in the garage, bare root, flowered. It has one leaf already and has been in the ground since March 15 so 7 weeks or slightly more.
I saw the flag leaf sticking up and below that comes the flower.
Now my question is if one leaf and a flag leaf is enough to "power it" through the summer?
I had a Dwarf Brazilian that flowered in the garage and even though I planted it outside it is rotting and literally breaking in half. But that was early on so my fear is if my Dwarf Nam Wah will see a similar fate.

Any advice or opinion if it will make it?

Thanks

crazy banana

Honest answer? I doubt it will make quality fruits. I have just cut down two plants with bunches today. The plants only had one or two leaves and the bunches started to rot. Sometimes, if the flowering plant is part of a big mat with lots of smaller pups, the fruits fill in by (my guess) taking energy out of the mat, corm and pups, but the fruit quality is just not worth it for me.
My guess is that your plant does not have any corm mass or pups to benefit from, but give it a try.

nph

Thanks, yes I will try since I am running out of bananas that has a chance to bloom here in Dallas this year.
This year I am trying ale True Blue Java, FHIA 18n and SH3060.
Since last year I also have a big FHIA 3, Sweetheart, that I whole will bloom before July which in my experience is too late to produce fruit in North Texas.
Last year was a cold and dry spring while this one is extraordinary wet...
First time I am starting to worry about rot.

PR-Giants

Honest answer?

Interesting guess, but not true.

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crazy banana

Haha, it is just a guess based on my personal experience.
I have read things like "6 to 10 functional leaves are needed for a banana fruit bunch to fill in".
My observations here show, that fruits bunches of big old established mats usually do fill in even with only the flag leaf. The fruit quality sure is a different story.
I have two Tall Namwah right now in a mat which grew pretty much out of control. Both fruit bunches only have the flag leaf for supporting the fruit bunch and they are doing great. The plants with fruit bunches I had to cut down yesterday because of their rotting fruits also only had the flag leaf left; but significantly less pups or corm mass compared to the Tall Namwah. The prior treatment (water, fertilizer, light) were all the same.
So I do not know why there are differences, if it is based on the variety or what the reasons are. I am just glad that sometimes it simply works, because if it would not, even our usually nice Southern California weather with just some occasional morning hours below 32 F would not be nice enough to grow any banana with ease.

PR-Giants

The mat supporting myth was easy to debunk. Find a bunch of bananas in the process of flowering and chop off all or most of the leaves and then simply observe. I've done this many times to many cultivars and it's never worked, not even once.

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crazy banana

PR Giants, are you talking "quality fruit" or general speaking "fruit that has never filled in"?
It is happening right now in my yard "Tall Namwah" filling in just fine, but will keep you all posted of the final results.
I also had some Dwarf Namwah bunches filling in fine in the past.
One thing I did with bunches that appeared late summer or during the fall, I wrapped them in some solar growing bags.

PR-Giants

In the Tropics we need the leaves for the fruit filling stage, so what you're doing in Cali is really amazing. You should consider documenting the entire process or at the very least the time from flowering to harvest. Banana scientists and commercial growers from around the world can learn from what you're doing in your yard.

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crazy banana

It can be done!
These two decent bunches of Tall Namwah were harvested this week. Both plants did not have any leaves after some cold early morning hours temperatures in January. Both plants sent out an inflorescence in February shortly after.

Photo 1: Bunch with 203 edible bananas (I was expecting sub-quality taste but they were just as delicious than a summer bunch, though smaller fruit shape)
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Photo 2: Have not counted the fruits yet, but it came in at 45 #


Apparently it works on all my Namwah (dwarf and tall), but has not worked with other varieties.

Coastwind

I found this thread and thought I would mention that I fruited my banana this year with no leaves on it too. I planted it as a two inch plug in March 2015. I probably had about 50 bananas on it and the fruit was great though small when I cut it off. I probably could have left it on longer but wanted to give the other banana stalks on the corm a chance to go to flower this year too. My banana plant put out a flag leaf in the last days of December 2015 after all the leaves had been fried by frost. I figured that since people say that you should cut off the other stalks when you get a flag leaf in order to concentrate energy from the roots that that if I did not do that the stalk with the inflorescence would take the energy from the others. Sure enough, as the inflorescence grew more and more and as the weather got nicer the other stalks started growing leaves again and the inflorescence benefited from their energy. I harvested in the beginning of August.

Coastwind

I should have mentioned that I believe my bananas are also Dwarf Namwah so maybe this is the only type that does this (along with Namwah).

nph

Dang it! My Icecream just showed a flag leaf today. Less than 2 months before first frost so it won't fly at all.
So it took almost 2 years for it to fruit. Darn.

crazy banana

See the glass half full: at least you should be able to identify it correctly and see if you have the true Ice Cream/Blue Java or one of the mislabeled ones.

pitangadiego

Find a way to keep it warm through the winter. Temp greenhouse of plastic pipe and plastic drop cloths and a heat source, or ? You got this far, go for it. You have nothing to lose.

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nph

Crazy Banana, good point on the ability to identify if it is the true Ice-cream or not. Pitangadiego, I might try but it is really big (one of the reasons I believe it is the true Ice-cream) so it will be hard to even cover it for the first frost, even less to warm it.