modenacart

http://www.tytyga.com/bananas/why.htm

This sounds crazy.

JoeS475

lol it is junk.

go through the pages, its good for a laugh though... the naked guys holding banana flowers with the quote "male banana apparatus." Also the picture of a dying yellow leaf - "leaf color changes in the fall"

hahaha

~Joe

__________________

fish2026

good subject for discussion. My agri starts plants seemed to grow in the box on the way here and are fine in a greenhouse.

there are two good questions/topics that you raise in your post.

1. Are tissue culture plants inferior in strength and viability to other plants when grown outside?

2. Are plants raised to a certain age in a greenhouse "weaker " than ones planted directly in the ground? So far I have put 90% of my agristarts plants in the greenhouse ( 6 hrs sun) and they are fine. 10% are in pots outside where they get full day long sun but also wind. ( I live right on the texas coast 55 ft from the ocean)- many of them dont look as good but the Ice Cream ( blue java) are fine. Red inholene ( not too good).

Ive got to transplant these sometime - not sure when is best.

pitangadiego

TyTy is all junk all the time. Period. End of discussion.

__________________
Encanto Farms Nursery
http://encantofarms.com
We Be Bananas
http://webebananas.com

Sailfish

i'm not so sure I'd dress my boy up as a banana fairie and post his pic on the web either.
But thats just me.

__________________

JoeReal

Regardless of what tyty has to say about tissue cultured plants, here's my actual experiences with them:

1) I have grown about a third of my bananas from cheap tissue cultured plants, specially coming from eBay, and indeed they bear fruits in due time, but quite a while compared to real banana pups. Sometimes tissue cultured is the only way to get specific banana cultivars, they're cheap, they're practical, and if you are not in a hurry, they are excellent sources of affordable cultivars. After they are established, it really doesn't matter if they are from TC or pups.

2) TC plants when planted directly into the ground even in the warming days of spring often die out and had a very hard time establishing directly. They often die out by just neglecting to water them for a single day in a typical California day. You should plant them into pots, and they would be as good as pups to plant into the soil the very next year. Depending on the size of banana pups, often you can plant them directly into the ground without a problem.

3) TC plants are weak in the sense that they have itty bitty corms. I've had several that the tops were cut off due to accidents, like pots falling down head first into the ground, those plants never came back because there is almost no corm to restart the plant. On the other hand, attach a bare-rooted banana pup unto a rope, drag it around the block, and plant it, it will recover and grow.

4) The major drawback of TC plants, especially from eBay is that they are often mislabeled! It is so easy to make mistake with these plants, especially if you order from multiple cultivars in single trays. Low paid employees would ship a plant and that is their main job to package them, and would simply grab the nearest banana TC plantlet that they can get a hold of, and often you learn that there was a mistake, two to three years later. Not all sellers are like that and there are wonderful sellers who are taking great effort and the extra mile to ensure the cultivars are true as labeled. With pups, often the sellers or hobbyists have grown them, the plants have been proven, and most likely have correct cultivar names.

For hobbyists or collectors with the time patience and care they can give, Tissue cultured plants are very practical as they are often a lot cheaper to ship and of course there are advantages and disadvantages. Most likely, it is the seller's reputation and accuracy of labeling the plants that is my number one criteria for exchange or buying from.

Tyty's banana that I bought have been all mislabeled!
The Texas star turned out to be ornata,
their super cold hardy red variegated banana turned out to be the cold sensitive zebrina.
The kentucky or whatever, turned out to be another ornamental banana.

fish2026

Joe - that was an excellent discussion and analysis. Your post ought to be saved in some "reference" section for when people have the tc vs seed banana questions.

MediaHound

Let's get a page going in the wiki about tissue culturing
http://www.bananas.org/wiki/Info:Tissue_Culturing

Bananaman88

I've never ordered from Ty-Ty (and probably never will after reading JoeReals excellent post-we need to know who isn't correctly id'ing the plants they sell) but I have perused their site extensively. It is definitely good for a laugh, especially if you look at some of the photos with a slightly dirty-mind. Not that I would ever do that! If you have the time and need a laugh, just look through their site. Not just the banana section either; the citrus section is highly amusing!

mrbungalow

Aren't practically all landraces of bananas TC at one point or another?

__________________

bananimal

What JoeReal says about TC weakness is right on the money. Even with potting up and developing some growth first I lost 5 wimpy TC plants this year.

They were the pitogo, saba, red iholene, ensete maurelii and just recently the gran nain x sumatrana.

Three were replaced with 4 and 5 foot pups cut off the parent and are pushing huge leaves now. Still undecided about replacing the Maurelii - had bad spider mites over and over until it croaked. The red Iho will be permanently replaced by a parent pup of something else as soon as I track one down.

Any one want to trade? Got a big corm Dwarf Orinoco in a pot that can ship bareroot. See my gallery.

Dan

AnnaJW

And only $279.00 for for an Ae-Ae!

__________________
-Anna Banana -

Living my life in MMORPG's

the flying dutchman

Well Anna, you know what Ae-Ae means, don't you?

Always expensive, Always expensive

Or am I mistaking, could be, sorry, huh. Brrr.




Ron

__________________

AnnaJW

LOL!!!

__________________
-Anna Banana -

Living my life in MMORPG's

Kylie2x

LOL!!!
I have never heard a good word about TyTy's.. I guess I missed the naked guy!!! What's that about anyway????? YIKES!!!!

AeAe!!! yep!!! always expensive.....LOL
Kylie