epcc

Hi, I'm new to growing bananas, but I've grown a lot of other plants before.

So I've managed to almost kill my banana plant with root rot twice now. First I overwatered it bc it was really hot this summer and I misjudged water retention capacity of the coconut sponge.

After transplanting to new soil, it kind of recovered until the Estonian winter darkness hit. It seems I didn't clean off enough of the root rot, it had taken over almost all of the pot.

Only about 5cm of root per plant was salvageable, but the central round part(rhizome?) is solid.

Since the plant is halfway dead and will likely not recover from another overwatering, I decided to build a small hydroponics rig filled with expanded clay pebbles for it. My reasoning was that this way the plant will get all the air and moisture it needs for its roots and if needed I could reduce the moisture in the pot within hours by turning off the pump.
After 3 days, I've already noticed a couple of small white roots, each about 2mm in length, but I couldn't get a nice picture of those.

Right now I'm circulating pure water through the pot and will add a light nutrient solution only after I've seen some improvement. Also, excuse the trashy system, it was put together from random things I found in my cupboard. If this works out, I'll build something nicer.

I haven't seen anything similar attempted yet, so let me know what you think how it will turn out and if there is anything I could do to increase their chances of survival.

cincinnana

You are on the right track.

Things to do.

Move to a warm spot in your home away from a cool window.

Increase artificial light to 15 hours if you can once a new set of leaves appear.

Roots will increase over time and by spring(or sooner) you may transition back to your pre moistened soilless mix.

When transitioning back to your soilless mix the plant will lose some of the fine hair roots that have spread throughout the leca and probably some leaves too....that is normal.
The plant will also show negative signs of the transition from water to soil also and it will sort itself out in a month or two.

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epcc

Thanks for your thoughts!
I'm considering keeping the plant in leca indefinetly. The increased control over watering and nutrients and hopefully better growth rates than in soil seem really attractive. Is this something people do or will I have some issues later with this kind of setup?

cincinnana

Some folks take the hydro route which is a great learning experience.

Your plants will fill that pot pretty quick once they sort themselves out.

Your only drama down the road is figuring out what container size you'll need next and where to get 50 pounds of leca

Do you know the variety the plant?

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epcc

The variety should be Dwarf Cavendish.
I'm really amazed with how quickly the plant has responded. Only a week in and the new roots are already about 15mm long and looking healthy. If it keeps growing at this rate, it will fill the pot in no time at all for sure.

epcc

Hi again!
I'm happy to report that the plant has recovered beyond all my expectations! (for scale, the stainless steel disc is 60cm in diameter and the glass jar is a 3L pickle jar)


I'm starting to suspect that letting the roots dry out causes much more damage faster than overwatering. Right now I have some roots living in the water on the saucer under the pot without any issues, but once I drain the saucer, they'll end up dead in a day.

Overwatering has been discussed in this forum and everywhere a lot, would be interesting to read up on underwatering to see if my suspicions are true.

mchris752

Woah looks fantastic