Bonnie

It has been awhile since I have been here but I really need some help.
I have a few questions. Many edit later I figured out how to post the pictures.

I am in NC zone 7 and my bananas winter in a 96' greenhouse and summer outside.
1) we only heat to 55 degrees at night. Is that warm enough for bananas to finish developing? It does get very warm in there during the day.
2) This particular plants is overcrowded in a 30 gallon.
3) There is one bunch on the one plant and mold on the bottom of the bloom.
4) I just noticed a 2nd bloom this morning on a different plant. Never seen a bloom this late in the season. Will they mature especially at 55 degree nights.
5) Should be be fertilizing?
Thank you for your most generous help. Most of the time the flowers die off. This one is Cavendish but I do have some semi Dwarf Cavendish. I have about 12 over crowded pots we need to divide. Can I do this now in the fall with night temps of only 55 degrees?



New flower I found today



Mold at the bottom of the stem



30 gallon over crowded pot. Far left is bunches of bananas; molding on the bottom and far right is the bloom on the other plant in the same pot.

Sarah Brubacker

Because I grow in pots this sparks my interest.
Mine bloomed and grew or stayed ok and filled out later. Might just take longer, the greenhouse was down to 47 and probably quite often in the 50, but every day we have sun it would warm up, the one bloom came out in the end of Nov. And the other in February or somewhere there, the first got ripe in June and the second in July.
I have mine in 20 gallon pots but try keeping only two plants in (one big and the replacement) I am taking pups off and transplanting them now. If they don't grow it won't bother me, they just needed to get off. I also have dwarf Cavendish.

kaczercat

That's very impressive to have two plants blooming in the same pot! congrats, thanks for sharing.

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Matt

Tytaylor77

On the mold/fungus I would just cut the bud off. India has actually posted studies on different varieties proving removing the bud speeds the filling! I did my own study and showed no difference.

At only 55 they shouldn’t go dormant. As long as they are above 45f or so mine are fine. So I predict they slow way down and finish filling come spring.

I would fertilize very little or none during winter. If you do make sure it is high in potassium and low in nitrogen.

Congrats! A greenhouse bunch is awesome. 2 is even more awesome!

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pitangadiego

My best guess is that 55F is the very minimum temp before a plant begins to loose its vigor. I would try to bump that up a little if possible.

If the plant (leaves, etc) begin "fading" out it is a sign that it is too cold.

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Bonnie

Does anyone think that there will be further growth to come out past the mold? We had several days of cloudy rainy weather and I believe that caused the problem.

Another problem we had major ants in the dirt in the pots when we divided some in the spring. Not knowing what to do we poured pyrethrum mixed with water in the pots. That took care of the ants and it may have set the plants back for the spring/summer growing season.
I did ask here in 2016 about ants but no one had any ideas how to get rid of them in the pots.
The same plant that is blooming now did come into bloom just before we discovered the ants but that bloom quickly died. I thought the plant died once it bloomed. Maybe more flowers because the first bloom in the spring died before developing?

Also I have 3 semi dwarf cavendish that have never bloomed and they are starting their 3rd year. Any ideas?

obdiah

once the bloom starts producing male flowers it serves no purpose and probably slows
down maturing of the fruit if your taking of the mold on the end of the bloom probally not and would serve no purpose if it did ty pretty well summed it up in his post nice job geting fruit glad to find out i am not the only banana nut in north Carolina ( stony point nc)

Bonnie

I am in Newton; half way between Hickory and Lincolnton.
What kind of bananas do you grow? We have a bunch of pots all that need to be divided. We hope to get them divided soon. The blooming one will wait until spring.
I just cannot figure out why my dwarf Cavendish that are 2.5 years old have not produced........The one that is blooming is a dwarf that is 5 to 6' tall.
We grow and ship all across the USA aquatic plants, thus the 96' greenhouse. I also have a huge collection of tropical plants that winter in the greenhouse.

anita

That container doesn't seem to me to be 30 gal, rather 15-20.
Dwarf Cavendish in growing and blooming fast once it has proper nutrients and a large size container 15 gal, should be enough.
Grown in a small and crowded container it should fruit in 3 years.

Bonnie

It is 30 gallon so why would you doubt what I say? One thing for sure we each have 30 years of commercial greenhouse growing and one thing we know is our pots.

anita

I know in US 30 gallons is not always real 30 gal (113 liters).
I don't doubt about what you say, but for me from the picture you took it looks a little bit small.
Here is my 60 liters which is 15.85 gal.

Bonnie

The pot is much bigger than yours and chucked full of plants this is a semi dwarf 5 to 6' tall. I have dwarf in 15 gallon pots

Mudturkle

Regarding the ants, have you tried Diatomaceous Earth?

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Bonnie

No we used pyrethrum and it set all the bananas plants back for quite awhile but we did get rid of the ants. Pyrethrum was handy because it is use on the aquatic plants we grow.

Mudturkle

As you know, pyrethrum can damage plants. Supposedly Diatomaceous Earth doesn't.

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Central Texas Zone 8B and Gulf Coast zone 9B: Raja Puri, Dw. Brazilian, Dw. Orinoco, Dw. NamWah, Dw. Cavendish, Dw. Green?, Dw. Red? Iholena Tigua, Veinte Cohol, Misi Luki, Pisang Raja.

Bonnie

It was the first time and the last time we will use Pyrethrum. We use it all the time here and never had any kind of plant damage and we have used it on a wide variety of plants, including my huge collection of tropical plants; some that are 30 to 40 years old. One is a 40 year old Jade tree (with a 6 inch main trunk) that blossoms every year.

The two banana plants in the one pot had a third plant that was blooming and the Pyrethrum killed the flower. I guess the plants are OK now or I would not have two blooms on two different plants in the same pot.

It was not a few ants in the pots of bananas had 1,000's of ants in each pot.

They must have come up through the greenhouse floor last winter. Every pot we tipped over last spring was over loaded with ants. Our thinking was all the tunnels in each was not good for the plants.

Ironically only the banana plants were damaged in my tropical collection.

Bonnie

Anita, The pot on the left is 15 gallons SO how big do you think the pot on the right is?

Bonnie

I am not sure what the protocol is here. Do I start a new thread or continue to post on the same one?

UPDATE: The 2nd bloom in the same pot is now developing. There are 3 full grown plants in one pot and now two of them are producing.

The picture below is the newest bloom


The picture below is of the other one that is producing. It continued to mold further down the stem. Today I decided to remove most of the moldy parts but then I found fruit lower down the stem. I just could not bring myself to cut off the stem.
Does anyone think/know if additional fruit will develop past where it was moldy?



I noticed just today that the pot is starting to crack.........but because of the fruit, I will not divide until spring.

Sarah Brubacker

The first bloom looks nice!
I don't have much experience but from what I have those small ones never get big, They stay the same size. They did turn yellow but really don't have much fruit in there. I think after the small ones open or after the big ones, they don't start making big ones again. But i could be wrong.

JCA433

What kind of ants? If they are fire ants, watch out! Fire ants sting relentlessly and are extremely aggressive.