Seperating a growing pup?
 

So i am not sure what to do with my super dwarf cavendish. i'm zone 7 in DE, and i have the plant in a pot inside. the mother has been growing only very slowly since the end of the outdoor season, but the pup is growing like crazy. i'm seeing some trouble coming when the newest spear unfolds.

as you can see by the latest pictures in my gallery, the new spear is going to unfold directly into the stem of the mother. and i also think that the next spear will probably reach the underside of the mother's leaves.

my question is this - should i seperate the plants? how do i do this? is it safe to do it now or should i wait? any help will be greatly appreciated!

Re: Seperating a growing pup?
 

I removed a 2" pup off of a SDC, and it came out with lots of roots and continued growing from the day it was separated. However this pup is entirely on its own, and has no mother to feed off, so it is slow growing and small. Since that was removed the original SDC put out another pup, this one I left alone, and it is already much bigger than the pup I took off before.

Don't worry about the leaves hitting the mother plant - even if they get a little damaged it seems to me the pup will overtake the mother in a matter of time. I've had that happen before.

Overall I think your best bet is to leave it attached, and see what happens.

~Joe

Re: Seperating a growing pup?
 

only take it off if you want to propagate it. dont worry about if they are going to touch or anything, they know what they are doing and the plant will be fine.

Re: Seperating a growing pup?
 

but... what is the proper way to keep a pup alive after its cut off? The one I took off my plant withered and died. It has 4 pups now, so eventually this question will come up for me........

Re: Seperating a growing pup?
 

The best way to keep the pup alive is to make sure you get as many roots as you can and a piece of the mother corm with it. The mother banana will quickly recover from loosing some corm. Also, one of the #1 killer is over watering young pups (in my experiences). The young pup may look thirsty, but water at this stage is death. Once you re-pot the pup do not water for a least 5-7 days.

Re: Seperating a growing pup?
 

The pups I took off my SDC and DC were respectively 2" and 1", sort of an experiment to see if they would live.

The 2" SDC pup as I said before never stopped growing and I watered it like I would any other banana, letting it dry out between waterings. Since it is in a tiny 4" pot it needs water frequently.

The 1" DC pup is in a 3" pot, and immediately after planting the leaves turned brown and died, except for a tiny bit of green left on the spear leaf. It remained just like this for 3 months, with regular watering when it was dry, until about Christmas time, when it literally burst into life, and is now growing fast and healthy.

A side note, the DC pup was the small kind, not the sword kind, but since its remergence I would swear it has changed traits because it started growing much more like a sword pup. Not sure if this makes sense to anyone, it really doesn't make much to me.

~Joe

Re: Seperating a growing pup?
 

Don't be in a hurry. It will be fine as is.

Re: Seperating a growing pup?
 

Ok, so what i'm taking from this is to let mine be and see what happens. and i was thinking about it after i posted and i guess these things have been doing this for what, ever? so i'm sure that it will be fine.

but, seeing as how i would rather have two healthy plants than one, how should i go about removing the pup when the time comes? i've learned tons of stuff from this site, but haven't really seen any detail about removing pups in such a fashion that they will flourish. any thoughts?

Re: Seperating a growing pup?
 

There are 2 kinds of pups?

Re: Seperating a growing pup?
 

Banana fun:
You said not to water a new transplanted pups until 5-7 days after.
Would you say it is true also when transplanting a huge 7 foot banana and corms?

Re: Seperating a growing pup?
 

I don't think it matters as much for large corms if the root structure remains intact, but if you want root structure to grow from the corm, the corm must seek out water. When you deny them water they are forced to root further away from the plant.

With regards to pups, the wound needs time to harden before watering. Some people don't even plant the corms for several days so the wound can dry out.

I have experimented with freshly cut pups and watering. Pups that I watered directly after they were cut wilted and took months to recover. The pups I didn't water remained flaccid and did excellent.

Re: Seperating a growing pup?
 

Thanks banana fun. I am learning lot in thiis foorum.