Matt in SD

OK,
I'm sure this has been discussed here before because everyone is talks about them. When Tony (Sunfish) came by my place he told me about sword suckers and it was the first I'd heard anything about it (been growing bananas for 5 years now). So what is the obsession with "sword sucker"? Of the 20 or so varieties of bananas I grow, nearly all of the pups on all of them come out with at least a few sword leaves. Some keep them longer than others. But I've cut hundreds of suckers off of more than 20 varieties of bananas and they pretty much all live and they pretty much all grow ridiculously fast if you put them in the ground in loose soil.

I have to admit there is one interesting observation I've made that does seem to support the sword sucker superiority, and that is that my 'golden pillow' banana is the only variety that usually produces sucker that start with REALLY small broad (not sword) leaves. And this is the only variety that I've lost significant numbers of suckers after moving. BUT, if I move them when they're bigger (3 feet or so) they're fine, whether they were sword or not.

Also, I've found that if a sucker has to be a certain size before it's ready to remove, AND they tend to suffer less setback if you remove them when they still have sword leaves, not broad/adult leaves. So I could deduce that you could have a larger sucker that will adjust quicker after division if it's grown larger while still maintaining sword leaves. But again, the "setback" from division is usually long gone in less then 6-8 weeks, even with non-sword suckers...so is this really important?

Basically I'm open to believing there is a difference in viability and growth rate for sword suckers, but from what I've seen, bananas grow so fast that it doesn't really seem like something to spend much time worrying about.

Please shower me with your tales of sword sucker superiority, scientific or otherwise. I'll start paying more attention too and seeing if I can see a big difference.

Matt

pitangadiego

See Water suckers

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Encanto Farms Nursery
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We Be Bananas
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ewitte

That link that was posted. Look at the picture on post #15. You have a much more developed root system. The other plant gets a lot of its energy from the mom.

natedogg1026

Swords are a better fruit producer.

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Banana's are a safe addiction. Right?Maybe I need classes.

Matt in SD

Thanks for the links. I think part of my confusion at how important people think this is comes from the fact that I'm in a climate where the bananas can overwinter with no problem. Also, I tend to have more pups than I can deal with so often they get pretty big before I take them off. If you have a 3-4 foot tall "pup" there is not so much of a difference anymore I don't think...although the sword sucker got that big much faster.

I am curious though where you draw the line. Somtimes, you have a sucker come up with broad leaves right away, which is clearly a water sucker. But this rarely happens on most good varieties and it seems to happen more often when the suckers are coming off of spent corms (corms that already produced and were cut down). And then there are some sword suckers that get 4-5 feet tall (6" or more base diameter) before putting out broad leaves...these are the other end of the extreme. But most commonly, what I see are in between these two. You get 2-5 sword leaves, followed by broad leaves and the pup has a base diameter anywhere from 2 inches to 4 inches before it stops making sword leaves. So what do you call these? Just because they've transitioned from sword to non-sword leaves, are they no longer "sword suckers"?

Matt