asacomm

Hello Friends,

My Helen's hybrid starts to emerge a flower bud. But unfortunately very
few things are known about the behavior of this banana, and in fact I
have never seen the photos of its ripe fruits, although I have seen the
phtos of very young fruits that might have died away before repining.

So could anyone tell me if natural or hand pollination is indispensable for the
growth and ripening if its fruits? Or could this banana be parthenocarpic?

DaveE

Congrats!!

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LilRaverBoi

Honestly, (and to be honest, I don't know what parthenocarpic even means LOL) I've never heard of a banana that REQUIRED external pollination to get mature fruit. Pretty sure all the edible types have sterile male, female or both male/female flowers and that is how they get edible (unseeded) fruit. For the seeded varieties, it is my understanding that they are monoecious plants, meaning both male/female parts are on the same plant simultaneously and can self-pollinate (possibly insects are required). But I've never heard of any banana plant that NECESSITATES human interaction for pollination.

Edit...just looked up parthenocarpic and yes....I believe all edible banana types are indeed parthenocarpic. Otherwise, my above statements still stand.

__________________
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Gabe15

The reason why bananas are edible and do not have seeds (2 different things) is rather complex goes beyond simple sterility. I've written about it many times elsewhere on this site, I'm not sure exactly where, but if you search around enough you may find it.

Wild bananas, although monoecious, form the male and female flowers at different, (mostly) non-overlapping times, so in fact they generally require out crossing unless the basal flowers are hermaphroditic instead of female as is true for some species. If you notice how a bunch of bananas develops, the female flowers (which turn into fruit) are completely dried by the time the male flowers begin to develop, leaving only the ovaries to develop into fruit which are no longer receptive to pollen.




Asacomm,
To get the answers to your's and everyone else's questions, this is what I recommend you do.

1. When the first hand of female flowers is showing, clip off the floral parts on half of the fruit at the ends of the young undeveloped fruits, leaving the ovaries intact. Mark which ones you did this too in case you cannot tell later on.

This will show whether or not it is truly vegetatively parthenocarpic.

If the fruit develops and there are no seeds inside, it is parthenocarpic. If the fruit does not develop at all, it is non-parthenocarpic.

2. Leave the rest of the first hand alone, and whatever remaining hands are formed.

This will show if they are seeded by selfing or outcrossing, or parthenocarpic.

If seeds form in these untampered with fruits, then it is self pollinating. If no seeds form, regardless if it is parthenocarpic or not, then it needs outcrossing to form seeds.

3. Check every day for male flowers (which will have significantly smaller ovaries), and when the first hand of those open up, try to collect pollen from the anthers (if there even is pollen) and see if there is enough overlap to hand pollinate the last hand of female flowers that formed right before it.

This will show if they are seeded by outcrossing.

If these are the only fruits that form seeds, we will know they do not self pollinate (with hermaphroditic basal flowers) and based on the info from the other fruits, if they are parthenocarpic or not, seed forming or not.

Hopefully in some of these fruits there will be seeds, and some others without seeds. If you do it like I outlined above, we can learn a lot about it.

Also, if you can, take very detailed, closeup photos of the flowers, and also if you can, describe what parts you see, and how many parts of each type you see.

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

asacomm

Thank you very much, Gabe, for your comments and hints.
I will try to do what you gave me as hints, and if it succeeded, I will
show you what the result will be.

asacomm

Disappointed!!
This banana should be somehow weird and strange. The flower bud was too
small, poor and immature to perform the proposed experiments.
The first hand contained only 5 fingers and the second 4 fingers and the third
neutral flower. So the experiments were conducted on the 9 fingers only.


The picture shows the first hand. Right 3 fingers: the stigmas were clipped
off to examine parthenocarpy. Left 2 fingers: Sprayed on the fingers and the
flowers 0.03% solution of Tomatotone p-chlorophenoxyacetic acid to produce
seedless bananas.


This is the second hand of 4 fingers which was hand pollinated with the
pollen from Basjoo. Something could happen?

Gabe15

Good enough, let's wait and see!

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

asacomm

Hello Friends,

The followings are the latest photos of the flower bud to show you how
they are developing:


You can see that from the third hand and on are neutral/female flowers.


The stigmas of the right 3 fingers are clipped off to examine parthenocarpy.
The left 2 fingers were sprayed biohormone solution on the flower and baby
bananas to perform a seedless experiment.


These fingers were hand pollinated with the pollen from Basjoo to examine
what will happen.

jeffreyp

would be a cool hybrid if you get seeds

Caloosamusa

Congratulations asacomm!! Thank you also for sharing the information!

Dean W.

Congrats asacomm!

I'll be following this thread.

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Raules

Beautiful photos and excellent result! Congrats asacomm!

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Tropical agriculturist

asacomm

Here is the latest photo of the young fruits of this banana as per today!


The young fruits seem to keep growing and I do hope this experiment
brings a certain results.

The stigmas of the 3 bananas of the first hand were clipped off to examine
parthenocarpy and the 2 bananas were sprayed "Tomatotone" solution to
produce seedless fruits.
And then 4 bananas the second hand were hand polinated by Basjoo pollen in
order to see what will happen.

Basjoofriend

Hi!

Helen's Hybrid x Musa basjoo, this is very good! Thanks, that you did the job for me! We need many basjoo hybrids and basjoo fruit banana hybrids

I'm interesting for seeds of this hybrids.

Best wishes
Joachim

asacomm

Hi all,

About 3 weeks passed since the first experiment of this banana was taken
place.
Here is a photo as per today of the young banana fingers.



Is it still too early to tell the result of this experiment?
It seems to me that the young fruits are still alive and keep growing.

What is your finding?

jeffreyp

i'd like to see a velutina x basjoo hybrid.