GreenFin

It's such a sad letdown when banana plants don't arrive on the USPS's expected delivery date...and all the postman hands you is a bill.

Sad banana.

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Set out runnin', but I'll take my time; a friend of bananas is a friend of mine.

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GreenFin

Box arrived 1/28/2012 from Wellspring Gardens:




Box contained from left to right: Gran Nain, Dwarf Red, Dwarf Cavendish, and Truly Tiny --




Gran Nain on 1/31/2012 --


Dwarf Red on 1/31/2012 --


Dwarf Cavendish on 1/31/2012 --


Truly Tiny on 1/31/2012 --

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Set out runnin', but I'll take my time; a friend of bananas is a friend of mine.

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sunfish

adorable

trebor

HEY Mr. GEENFIN.... You got them in a EB and FLO SYSTEM ?

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If ya can't eat it, it ain't growing in my back yard !

GreenFin

No, I do constant flood. The water level is a couple of inches below the surface of the gravel. (I use an industrial strength blower to aerate the water so the plants don't drown or rot.)

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Set out runnin', but I'll take my time; a friend of bananas is a friend of mine.

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GreenFin

I watched all day, but they never sent up any flag leaves.

Maybe tomorrow...

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Set out runnin', but I'll take my time; a friend of bananas is a friend of mine.

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GreenFin

This box arrived today from Florida Hill nursery (4 day delivery):


The box contained, from left to right:  Ice Cream, Double (Mahoi), Dwarf Namwah, and Raja Puri.  I was pleasantly surprised at how big they were, as I was expecting 3" tall plants like I got from Wellspring Gardens.


Musa Double (Mahoi) freshly planted in the grow bed:


Dwarf Namwah:


Ice Cream:



Raja Puri:


Raja Puri, ant's-eye view:

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Set out runnin', but I'll take my time; a friend of bananas is a friend of mine.

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GreenFin

If you click on that photo, you can see that there appears to be a disease of some sort on the Raja Puri's leaves. Is that Black Sigatoka?

I cut off the infected leaves and burned them off-site. Will that solve the problem or is the plant hopelessly infected? Should I just throw out the whole plant and hope it hasn't infected any other plants yet?

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Set out runnin', but I'll take my time; a friend of bananas is a friend of mine.

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Richard

Looks normal to me.

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venturabananas

I just see damage to the leaves that left black areas. Physical damage (e.g., from getting rattled around in the box during shipping) will cause black spots. I don't think you have a disease problem, from what I see. Also seems unlikely given that these were disease-free, tissue cultured plants, that were most likely grown in a greenhouse.

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GreenFin

My concern was that, while these plants arrived at the retailer's nursery as disease-free tc's several months ago, they have been sitting in the retailer's greenhouses for months...and these greenhouses pump in a lot of outside air...and right outside these greenhouses are probably many, many large adult plants that could harbor and transmit diseases.

But I'm glad you and Richard don't think it looks like anything nasty. You guys have a heck of a lot more experience than I do, so that certainly helps dial down the panic

Being a first-time banana grower is apparently like being a first-time parent. ("OMG the banana plant has a blemish--does it have sigatoka?!?" = "OMG the baby's crying--does it have ebola?!?")

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Set out runnin', but I'll take my time; a friend of bananas is a friend of mine.

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venturabananas

I hear that! My more experienced banana growing pals have had plenty of chuckles at my expense!

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GreenFin

My 'Super Dwarf Cavendish' arrived today from Northern Tropics. Check out how huge it is!



This is what it looked like after I washed off the roots and stuck it in the gravel grow bed (it's in the upper right; you can see the Truly Tiny in the bottom left and the Dwarf Cavendish in the upper left that I recently got from Wellspring Gardens...and about 25 little Red Lady papaya plants coming up in the opening off of seeds from Aloha Seed):


Ants-eye view of my majestic monster:



Thanks for the awesome plant, Sandy!

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Set out runnin', but I'll take my time; a friend of bananas is a friend of mine.

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GreenFin

Anyone have a guess as to how old my new SDC is?

Also, if the 3" tall DC in the upper left of the middle pic grows well, about how long will it take to get as big as the SDC currently is? (just looking for a rough estimate)

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Set out runnin', but I'll take my time; a friend of bananas is a friend of mine.

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robguz24

New in the ground this week-Ebun Musak, African Rhino, Goldfinger, Kru, Pitogo, and Golden Pillow. Now I'm up to 30 varieties! Had to yank a couple Dwarf Brazillian to make room, and the neighbor was happy to take them.

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My micro-farm

Stay on my Big Island banana farm cottage

venturabananas

Hard to say, depends on whether it was a TC plant (almost certainly) or a pup, and the growing condition. At least months old.

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venturabananas

Given how easy it is to get Dwarf Brazilian fruits in Hawaii, that seems like a reasonable tradeoff!

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GreenFin

Some new plants came in today from Florida Hill.  I've been trying to build up a collection of the smallest dwarfs to test in my tunnel greenhouse, and FH was the only business I could find that was currently shipping tc's of Zan Moreno and Little Prince (since I'm temporarily constrained on space, I specifically want tc's right now for their smaller starting size and slower initial growth).  And of course I then had to get a Gluay Kai and a pineapple plant, too, to take advantage of their 4-for-1 shipping deal lol.

When I arrived at the post office to pick them up, the postmaster apologized and said that the package had been crushed in transit and looked terrible.  She was right--the package looked like it had been bent in half in multiple directions, and a fairly large hole had been torn in one end (big enough to push a golf ball through). 

I was anticipating some pretty bad plant damage, but they seem to have survived their ordeal.  One of the plants had gotten too cold (it doesn't help when USPS rips big holes in the packaging) and had a blackened leaf that I removed, and another plant had a broken leaf, but all of the p-stems were intact and the plants all seemed to have healthy roots.  The US Postal Service had tried its best to kill them, but the little naners were just too tough







Here's a pic to show some perspective on size.  The package was sitting on a blue milk crate which was itself sitting over the top of a 5-gallon bucket.  The four other banana plants in this pic with 16-18" p-stems (30-36" tall overall) arrived from Florida Hill 5 weeks ago with 7" p-stems (about 12" tall overall).  They pushed out about a leaf a week throughout February and seem to be accelerating.  Pretty cool


And here are the new additions after being planted in the grow bed.  If we use the Truly Tiny that is in the very center of this pic as our reference point, then the Zan Moreno is at 3 o'clock, the Gluay Khai is at 1 o'clock, and the Little Prince is at 9 o'clock.  [The beautiful plant with wine marks at 10:30 is a Dwarf Cavendish, and the potted plants (along with the little plants in the center of the pic) are Red Lady papaya.  Green beans are at the bottom and left, butternut squash is at the top, and there are a couple of pepper plants in the bottom right.]

__________________
Set out runnin', but I'll take my time; a friend of bananas is a friend of mine.

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Yug

I won't buy from florida-hell nursery since they stole my photo of a Dwarf Brazilian, and refuse to remove it, or even acknowledge the theft.

edit - they finally removed it. Hell, if they'd have just asked, I probably would have said go ahead. (how hard is that?)

cheson74

Planted this Dwarf Namwah about a week ago.



and Williams Hybrid

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