bigdog

Just had my first one of these pop up within the past couple of days! I have a plant in the greenhouse from somebody else, and it is a beauty.

Germination occured within 4 weeks, 1 out of 50 seeds (so far). Seeds were soaked for about 60 hours, with water changed daily. Setup is one of those little roasted chicken containers (!) from the grocery store, a sterile medium of coconut fiber and perlite, a human heating pad (as opposed to a reptile heating pad, I guess) with the setting on high heat, 19 hours off, 5 hours on. I do have some light getting to it, but very dim.

On a side note, these seeds are old! I ordered them from Trebrown Nurseries about one year ago, but had lots of problems with my permit, shipping to the wrong address, back to the UK, etc. I finally got them a couple of months ago, long after giving up hope on them. I was pretty surprised to get any to sprout at all. If I can get this new sprout to live, I'll be able to test the other one outside this year.

51st state

I think freshness is an enormous factor. I always soak for 48 hrs and have a germination setup which controls temps really accurately and its still a real struggle to get these seeds to end their dormancy. (I have also tried GA3 and/or cape smoke primer to help)
I've had more success with seed bought via ebay from suppliers as close to the point of collection as possible. big US and European seed dealers have product which is not as fresh as that which you can find from India,Thailand and other 'source' areas.
Where did you get the Aurantiaca seeds from?

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Tropicallvr

I agree that freshness maybe a enourmous factor in some cases, but then again I've also had Musa balbisiana sprout(with high percentage), and the seeds must have been about 4 or more years old, and the black coating was wearing off, and it was down to the paper membrane on most of the seeds, so I'm still confused what role freshness plays.
My little Musa aurantiaca seedling is looking pretty good, lotsa red on the p-stem, and petioles, and my larger one that I gave away was starting to show some broad, but NOT numerous red streaks on the leaves. The latin translation of aurantiaca is orange-red, or some color in between.
Musa aurantiaca

bigdog

The source of the seeds was Trebrown Nursery in the UK, Kev. The seeds were pretty fresh when he offered them, but I had lots of difficulties with my permit, and so didn't get the seeds until almost a year later. I was very surprised that one sprouted in less than 4 weeks! Haven't had one sprout since then, but it's only been 5 weeks. Freshness does play a big role with some seeds, not so much in others. It's not exactly clear which one's which either, so it's all trial and error. That's one reason I wanted to add that the seeds were about a year old or more for this species, so those who were thinking about trying some old seeds would know that it is possible to germinate them.

My Musa aurantiaca that I got from you is looking fantastic, Kyle! The midrib is a nice purple color, and the pseudostem has lots of red-purple coloring too, but there's not much (if any) streaking in the leaves. I'll try to get a picture of it today when I go to the greenhouse.

Randy4ut

Does anyone have a pic of the plant in flower? Would love to see one. Everything about this banana seems beautiful, stem, leaf, flower.... What color is the fruit?

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Tropicallvr

Hey Randy,
The plants that we are growing are supposed to Musa aurantiaca, they were ID from pictures that were sent from trebrowns seed suppliers in Manipur region. Maybe that's what it is, maybe not. One plus is that my M.aurantiaca seeds sprouted in fairly cold weather outside, earlier than my other seeds, so that may be an indication of hardiness.
I think we are growing the one in the second set of photos-
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