harveyc

A year or so ago Brent told me that when he worked in St. Louis they had an Ae Ae and would whack it back in October, pot it up, and moving into their growing house, and then plant it back out the following May. The larger of my Ae Ae is really squeezed in my greenhouse. The ceiling is 16' high at the peak and 12' on the sides. It's in a 30 gallon pot and the soil line is close to 2' above the ground and I'd guess the total height is about 14' right now. I'm hoping to plant it outside next May under a shade since none of my areas with partial shade are tall enough, but I'm even worried about being able to make something tall enough for an Ae Ae (will 20' be tall enough???).

I'm wondering, if you whack back a banana plant, is the total height reduced since the new leaves emerging from a lower point? Is this a method that can be used to "dwarf" a banana?

Thanks,

Harvey

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Gabe15

It depends how close it is to flowering. If it is not close, then the leaves will initially come out to make a shorter plant, but it will also try to regain height (sometimes rather quickly) and if it can get in enough new leaves before flowering, I think would affect the final height very little (and perhaps only due to lost energy rather than a more direct means). If it is close to flowering, when the bunch comes out it would start to grow at whatever level the newest leaves made it to, and if the plant was not able to regain its height then I suppose it would cause a sort of temporary dwarfing effect.

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harveyc

Thanks, Gabe. I don't believe my Ae Ae is anywhere near flowering, though I'm just guessing. No pups yet and I didn't see any signs of any when I repotted it last week. It was very root bound in a pot of 16" or 18" and should be much happier now.

Are the total number of leaves still to emerge already determined at this point? I figured if, for instance, if there are 12 more leaves to come before flowering, that those would have typical spacing and maybe only be 6' from where I would whack it back to. So goes my thinking anyways. When you say that it would try to regain height, would that be by growing more leaves (than the number of leaves formed if not whacked back) before flowering or by increased spacing between the leaves, or both?

Mahalo,

Harvey

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JCDerrick

Someone on another plant forum told me a few weeks ago that cutting off the top of the p-stem will actually reset the count. Is that actually true? Or did they mean if you cut it back to like the ground?

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Malama 'Aina



Normal Jan. Low: 34°F, Normal Jul High: 92°F
Coldest: 16-20°F, Warmest: 98-103°F
Annual Precip: 48 inches

Bananaman88

Harvey,

I agree with Gabe that unless it is close to flowering, it will likely only have a short-term effect. I would think that if you go sparingly with the water this winter you could keep it from growing too much and keep it within the bounds you need. Also, I think the severe cut back we did on our Ae-Ae's is actually one of the things that induced them to pup so much. You may end up with a few pups out of this!

Steve L

Harvey, as you know, mine flowered in June at about 9 feet of pseudostem. At the very end before putting out the flower, it gained a massive amount of girth at the soil level so I figured something was about to happen. I saw one at Stokes in May in a pot about the same size as you upsized to and it was flowering at 6 feet. I'm sure it didn't produce many bananas. I've never seen one at Stokes taller than 12' before fruiting. Seems to me your will be just fine in your greenhouse and if the leaves touch the ceiling, I don't think it will matter that much. A lot of my heliconia do that in my greenhouse. The lack of sunlight will also slow down the growth. The Ae Ae I gave Brent this past April was greenhoused and I think it only put out 2 or 3 leaves during the winter. Average temps at night in my greenhouse were 58. Less water, less sunlight, less growth.

Steve

harveyc

Thanks, I'll leave it for now. I don't mind the leaves hitting the ceiling though I have shade cloth at the top and that can get pushed around. I'm mostly concerned with it being too difficult to move out next spring. I have to figure out the wiring on a heater someone gave me, but I hope to keep my greenhouse a bit warmer than 58F.

Mike from Chicago told me that he learned from his cousin that a small pot would induce pupping, but I really could not see how a pup could ever make it through the mass of roots I discovered when repotting. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll see pups in the new pot by next spring.

If I get the population of Ae Ae like I hope to, I'm going to try the whacking back method just to see if I can induce pupping like Brent saw.

By the way, Brent and Steve, how are your Ae Ae recovering from Ike?

Thanks,

Harvey

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Steve L

My fruiting Ae Ae got laid over in half with the fruit still intact. I left it as it was hoping that it wasn't a terminal break but the bananas started ripening within a week. I've been eating as many as I could and gave a hand away to my neighbor yesterday. I'm down to 2 hands. I had about 40 fingers all together. I finally whacked it down to the ground Saturday. My white pup began to die; but 3 other pups have joined the two that were already growing, albeit, so very slowly so now I have 5 pups and I think I might get one or two more. My other Ae Ae in the ground which has about 7 feet of psuedostem height was unharmed. I have a third in a pot on my patio which also escaped injury. It's going into the greenhouse for insurance purposes. I always try to have at least one pup that I can put in the greenhouse in case we have one of those bad freezes we seem to get every 20 years or so.

harveyc

Thanks, Steve. As I mentioned to you a while back, I probably would have planted mine in the ground if I had a back-up pup. I was accidentally the higher bidder on another on eBay about a month ago. I wish it was earlier in the year, though I imagine that's part of the reason why it went for less. The new one is still just sitting there so I decided to repot mine instead of take the risk of putting it in the ground. We have a hard freeze about once in every 15-20 years also. Even though we had a hard freeze in January 2007, I know that our odds of having one again this winter is still the same. I had a very tall sycamore tree but cut it down 5 years ago to add onto our house. It would have been great to put the Ae Ae under it. My neighbors have some tall sycamore and oak trees but I just can't bring myself to plant my banana on someone else's property!

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chong

My grandmother used to do that as a matter of course on all the banana mats in her yard (at least one per mat). As kids, my siblings and I thought that the fruiting plants looked funny, with just the pstem and the fruits and blossom pointing down with no leaves. The idea was so that harvesting was easier and sooner. She sold the fruits at her produce store located on the ground level of her "house-on-stilts" (It floods yearly, so the main floor had to be above the 50-year flood line. Her floors were made of bamboo slats, too. And man, was that a chore to polish.)

I wish I had paid more attention to her when sometimes, I would be visiting, and she would be cutting some of the p-stems. I know that I've asked her once or twice about it. I never dreamed that I would be growing bananas when I moved to Seattle in 1966. And when I started growing bananas in 1974, I had no way of asking her about it because she lived in the province.

Bananaman88

Mine is still hanging in there. I was able to stake it back up. Luckily, mine wasn't broken over like Steve's was, just blown over. It is pretty stressed, though. It hasn't put out a leaf since Ike. In fact, The leaf that was trying to emerge stalled out and started turning brown so I cut it out and it still hasn't pushed out a new leaf. We have been getting temps down in the high 50's the past two nights, but that's a little unusual for this time of year. Last night it only got down to about 60 and the overnight lows are supposed to start creeping back up. Daytime highs have been in the mid-80's lately. Still, our warmest temps are behind us and I would expect growth on all of my bananas to start slowing this time of year, so I don't expect much more out of the Ae-Ae this year. The little pup it has still looks good, though.

Simply Bananas

We trim the tops down here and get fruit. It is likely they meant being cut back to the ground can prolong the fruiting time(aka a reset).

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modenacart

I had to whack some of the stem on my orinocos back in April and it caused it to fruit at about 6.5 feet of stem. The ones I have growing in the corner have about 9 feet and still having fruited. I think it will cause the plant to "dwarf."

JCDerrick

Thanks, a 'reset' is what I believe they mentioned too.

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Malama 'Aina



Normal Jan. Low: 34°F, Normal Jul High: 92°F
Coldest: 16-20°F, Warmest: 98-103°F
Annual Precip: 48 inches

tetleytuna

So I can whack a plant back and still theoretically get fruit? I live in an area that gets below freezing weather for months at a time so have to grow everything in pots. Have had a banana for a couple of years that will get about twelve feet tall before I have to take it down by about half to overwinter it. It was a gift so have no idea what kind it is.