wcroninger

Greetings from North Carolina, just joined the group earlier today. This will of course become very apparent quickly.

Wife brought home some banana plants from a yard sale maybe 5 years ago. They seem to be very happy out in the backyard and are throwing out pups right and left. We initially cut them down to 6" before the winter, just covered the bases up.

This summer, 6 of them have developed immature bananas, however they never grow any larger than when the bulbs first appear and begin to open up. Any idea what we have and why they don't continue growing. I will post images of on my member site.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Bill

nexmp76

Welcome I'm also from NC. I'm fairly new and definitely not an expert but from my experience so far the most widely available banana I see for sale in North Carolina are Musa Basjoo bananas. I have some and they produce very small immature looking inedible seeded bananas. I think they are a very nice looking ornamental but fruiting types I usually have to get elsewhere. Definitely more seasoned growers should be able to help confirm after you have uploaded your pics. Hope you're able to get a positive identification.

wcroninger

Thanks for the welcome and the information you posted was really helpful. We will just enjoy seeing the tiny bananas and flowers appear. Only problem is that after looking at this site, my wife is even MORE interested in other varieties LOL.

edwmax

It would help if you post some pics of the plant. .... I don't grow basjoo, but you may have that. However the female finger while it is small, it should grow some and fatten up as the seeds grow.



For info: ... Bananas when blooming first produce female flowers/fingers which grow to make the banana; afterwards the blooms start producing male flowers/fingers. These dry up and usually drop off (but not always). I have an Orinoco type that bloomed but did not make any female fingers .... they were all male fingers and dropping off. Another Orinoco bloomed and produces 2 small hands, then started making males fingers which are dropping off. .... On some banana types the males fingers may not drop off. ... The cause of my problem is likely environmental (dry weather).


So if you do not have a basjoo you could have the same problem.


Welcome to the forum and Bunch.

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wcroninger

Have tried to upload images a number of time and although it looks like I am posting to my gallery nothing ever shows up. The Basjoo seems to be the most common guess and from the images I've seen sure looks like the most likely candidate. I will definitely keep trying to post images.

mari@adams.net

Your pictures could be too large....has to be below 200mb to be posted. When I take a picture to be posted here, I step back a ways so I can downsize the picture.

mari@adams.net

I assume the small bananas are male ones?[IMG][/IMG]

Backyard Banana Joe

Well..... They are Hermaphrodite () flowers. Technically they ARE male, but technically not

wcroninger

Mari:
Thanks, that was the problem, the image files were too big. Did a bit of photoshopping and server seems happy now LOL