asacomm

One of my banana friends living in zone 9a told me that his Helen's hybrid
planted outside in the ground and overwintered there with strawmat
protection starts to flower only in 14 months including the dormant period
of say 4 months from Dec.-March, that means the actual growth period was
only about 10 months(14 months of total growth-4 months of dormancy).

My understanding is that the normal growth period of ordinary musas to start
flowering can be converted to the accumulated numbers of its leaves that
are 30-40. But I don't think it possible to open this amount of leaves in the
growth period of say 10 months.
My shortest length of period of other musas was 20 month, that means
actual period was about 16 months(20 months-4 months of dormant pediod).

Although Helen's hibrid is a kind of mysterious banana, is it possible for this
musa to start flowring in such a short period?

Gabe15

The number of leaves until flowering is irrelevant, each variety will act differently in different environments, it is not possible to say that in general bananas will flower within range of number of leaves.

If you grew a certain variety in the same conditions and had it flower multiple times and counted the leaves until flowering, you would probably be able to come up with an average and be able to predict after how many leaves that variety would flower in those conditions, but this number should be considered non-transferable to all other varieties and situations.

As to your question, 10 months of active growth sounds pretty normal for a banana to flower.

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

Jack Daw

Yep, 10 months is normal, some will take less, and some (like Ice Cream) more. Look in the Wiki, there are also blooming times somewhere there. To add one detail: the situation varies with climate as well. Even the amount of rainfall, average humidity... is important. So it's quite possible, that what blooms at his place in 10 months will bloom in yours in 12 months of active growth.

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Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



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