JoeReal

California Gold for sale at eBay from a very good person. I don't know if he is a member in this forum yet. Sold is a nice-sized pup, much better than tissue cultured plantlets.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Cold-Hardy-CALIF...QQcmdZViewItem

California Gold don't produce a lot of pups, so it tends to be offered rarely in eBay. I don't know if Jeff Earl has tissue culture of this. My friends are getting California Gold from Mike, and it is 4 ft at the trunk.

JoeReal

oops. Mike is the seller of the same pup. Already he's here.

MediaHound

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JoeReal

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JoeReal

Smileys are not showing up?

JoeReal

Okay, you need to type a text at least

Casa Del Gatos

Sorry to anybody who WAS interested in the CG on eBay.

I absolutely could not resist after all I've heard about them on GardenWeb so I snapped it up.

JoeReal

Good for you. I was going to snap it up for a friend because he could not wait for my pup. I was hoping somebody else will, if not, I would have bought it for my friend. Since it is still relatively rare, I'd like others to have them. Anyway, I am getting the 4-ft at the trunk high Ca Gold from Mike. Currently I have one blooming California gold with a 5 ft pup.

Casa Del Gatos

Nice! BTW, in my house 5 feet ain't no pup! I am anxiously awaiting this one, Mike just sent me the shipping tracking email, so I am expecting delivery sometime this week at my office.

You should see me driving home with the plants I get shipped to my office. I have a small roadster whose top is ALWAYS down and I just put the tree/plant in the passenger seat and go! I get some funny looks for sure.

JoeReal

Went to Mike's house in Antioch yesterday. He dug up the 4-ft California gold pup for me, a process that took about a couple of minutes only. Promptly load it to the van, then drove off to plant the Gold in my friend's yard, some 40 miles away.

Before we got to the digging part, he gave us a tour of his yard, and here are the highlights. He has fabulous fantastic bananas already proven to be productive in his yard. He also have other tropicals and subtropicals like avocado trees. He has fantastic looking palms, and blueberries in between the trees or palms.

For those of you wanting to harvest sizeable amount of fruits, Mike is doing the right thing. Maintaining only one or two pups per main banana corm. Selling off or giving away pups that would otherwise crowd the area. If you let your bananas be themselves when it comes to pupping a lot, you will have less frequency of blooming and smaller bunches of fruits in our zone.

All of Mike's banana plants are dark green and super healthy. He has praying hands currently fruiting. Most of all, I got to see the fantastic California Gold fruits. The mother plant has very few half-sized leaves, which were damaged earlier in the season and a total of about 5 only if I counted properly from memory. But the trunk is quite big. With that size and condition of the tree, I can't believe it put out such a big bunch of fruit, the biggest one I ever saw in our area. Remember that this is Northern California, and before Mike's CaGold, the biggest fruiting banana bunch that I saw around our area is only 1/4 the size of Mike's California Gold. California Gold has a more rounder shaped fruit compared to Orinoco when the fruits are bigger, but when the fruits are smaller, they looked the same.

With the big bunch of banana fruit, Mike told me that he will be having a problem on what to do with such a big bunch. I hope to post some recipes for him before end of October or before the first frost, about the time we start harvesting these fruits. These plantain type fruit are better suited for cooking rather than for ripening and eating fresh.

Here's my initial tip for Mike and those that are going to harvest Orinocos as well: Use the fruit just how you would use the commercially sold plantain banana in the supermarket. When these are semi-ripe, you can simply microwave them for 4-6 minutes per fruit depending on size, and then peel off and spread sour cream and eat it like you would a potato prepared the same way, although I like the taste and complexity of carbohydrates of plantain banana than potatoes, and plantain bananas have higher fiber and more complex carbs. You can make tostones for sure. And we have other nice recipes for cooking and preparing the plantain types just like you would mashed potatoes. There are endless uses for these types of plantain bananas, and if you check the price at the supermarket, the plantain type bananas costs twice as much as the dessert cavendish types like dole and chiquita. I will post our various recipes for cooking such plantain types of fruits sometime later.

Bananavilla

JoeReal, you are correct on the pups. You have to keep them thinned out. I generally pull all pups except 1 to replace the mother up to about a month or so before I think it is going to flower.
Otherwise you can imagine how crowded it would get - like my ice cream last season:


Remember my Dwarf Orinoco that I was telling you is at fruiting size? This is last seasons stalk:


And here is what a typical bunch of Dwarf Orinoco looks like for me here at my place:


Here was my Ice Cream bunch last season - The flower that is out on Ice Cream now seems much larger than last seasons as to be expected on a 2nd generation plant:


If you want to see some really big fat Healthy banana plants you need to check out Davids place. He grows them more like a commecial banana plantation. Not just landscape plants as I do.

I guess the main point for everyone to keep in mind is that if you are dedicated enough, you could probably fruit a banana in any climate. It is all just a matter of how much time and energy you want to invest.

One more note on the California Gold's - I had sent one to Southergrower last season and he is interested in moving it out since his greenhouse space is limited. He tells me it is 5ft now! If someone were to want it, he could cut the main stem off and send you one heck of a mother corm! It would most likely imediately send up many suckers. If interested contact him on it. I believe he is on this board as well.

Happy Growing,
Mike

bananalover

I wonder if we could get a picture of dwarf orinoco's fruits next to california gold's fruits?

Bananavilla

Well, maybe not side by side -

Dwarf Orinoco is pictured above and Below is my California Gold bunch about 10 minutes ago.
Very similar but California Gold seems to produce a few more hands:



The Dwarf Orinoco fruit bunch and growth habit seems to vary greatly from one location to another.
My Dwarf Orinoco came from Southergrower. Mine only get 5 - 5.5ft of trunk tops and give 5-7 hands.
His tend to get a bit taller (6-7ft) and I think he is getting 4-5 hands. But, His fruit is TWICE the size of what I get!! There are apparently many many factors involved in what is going to come out.



The banana in pic above is a Dwarf Orinoco that Southerngrower sent me from his recent harvest.
Keep in mind the plants that Southergrower and I have are form the same corm and should be genetically identical I believe.

Mike

bananalover

Thank you. What I really wanted to see what if anyone had a picture of the fruit at the same maturity to see if I could see any difference(cell phones and hands do come in all sizes). Can't tell here. I would also like to know from anyone who have grown the two, do they see any difference in cold tolerance and if they see any real difference in the two plants. (Not the original grower please unless you identify yourself). Thanks.

bananalover

After reading it again, maybe we misses a picture. We got one " bunch " and one picture with a hand and cell phone that is it.
?

Bananavilla

This is Dwarf Orinoco again:



I rate California Gold vs. Dwarf Orinoco as follows:

Hardiness - Same
Height - Calgold taller (6-7ft under my conditions) Dwarf Orinoco (5-6ft)
Bunch size - Calgold a few more hands

I don't see Calgold to be any Hardier than Dwarf Orinoco. And it does sucker just as much if not more.
I find Ice Cream and Praying Hands to be just as hardy also. But size is definately a factor.

Mike

Southern-Grower

bananalover,

here's my d.o. here in ga. and i'm the grower of the cell banana..

four hands largest hand 7" smallest 6" 52 fruits..




if you want to dig in futher on the d.o. follow link below and you can find the bloom process and time line .
http://spaces.msn.com/members/sgbana...onalSpace.aspx

if your wanting instant fruit so to speak lmk as i've got plants that will bloom next year, for sale. i also have the 5' california gold with pup for sale. i can also fix you up with grand nain, ice cream and lasiocarpa

BTW i'm in newnan, where are you?

happy growing,

sg

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Happy Growing,

SG

Enjoy Life as it's too Short

JoeReal

Dwarf Orinoco fruits looked exactly like some of the Saba fruits. There are some variations in the shape and size of saba fruits depending where grown. Nonetheless, these are plantain types and are really best suited as cooking bananas. In some places of the world, these are staple food, the green unripe bananas are simply boiled, and then peeled off and eaten together with fish or meat.