Disease or not?
 

Hello,

Another concern plant i have is my smaller Tall Orinoco pup. It has a few lighter(like mottling but just a couple patches) colored patches on its very first leaf produced and some yellow colored areas on its newest leaf. These arent mottling like,they look like defects of the leaf/burn from sun.

Here is a picture:




The mottling cant be seen due to the sun glare unfortunately. The yellow areas do can though. Do you think any of these things are due to a disease or just leaf defects and why would they happen? I have not grown many bananas so i really dont know what to expect. My Ice Cream never did any of these in the full year i have been growing it.


Yet another question i have is regarding my White Iholena. This plant is a greenhouse grown pup from Austria so i would guess the light intensity it was used to is much lower than the one it gets here with part day full sun. Anyway,this one grew leafs in a surprisingly fast pace but the leafs where not able to reach out of the pseudostem and open as they were shorter. So the pseudostem fattened up,split the outer leaf sheath and as the new leaf where pushing the other leaf sheaths apart,they were finally revealed and opened. Here is a photo of the plant:


The newest leaf it had when i got it was the half leaf you can see. It was a spear then but it gradually opened. You can see the 2 smaller leafs above it,these are the leafs it produced while i have it. You can see they are much smaller and the last one is not shaped very normally but its leaf sheath has now grown to the height the pseudostem was when i got the plant,as you can see if you look closely. Well,i can imagine that this can be a response to the higher light levels it now grown under but i the leaf shape of the last leaf bothers me a little. It could be because the previous one wasnt able to see any light when this newest one was pushing but i would certainly appreciate your opinion on it this whole thing is normal or there is any chance for disease. I may be just worrying too much over nothing but better safe than sorry:bananas_b I would really appreciate your opinions and help on these matters!

Thank you very much in advance! :)

Re: Disease or not?
 

There are a lot of publications about banana viruses. In most cases, if you feed your plants a complete fertilizer that contains standard amounts of sulfur, copper, zinc, etc. then these diseases are not an issue.

Re: Disease or not?
 

Thank you very much for your reply Richard!

Will they be cured though? I am worrying because i dont have yearround ideal conditions so the disease would certainly have the chance to take advantage during certain periods. And of course,its not that great to have a diseased plant as it could potentially spread it to healthy ones with the ''help'' of vectors.
I am inclined to think the above incidents may just be random leaf deformity caused by environmental conditions but i would certainly appreciate any opinion on this matter! :)

Thank you very much in advance!

Re: Disease or not?
 

Are those wood chips your potting soil? Or just a top dressing?

Re: Disease or not?
 

Top dressing,used as mulch to keep the soil moist for longer and to deter neighborhood cats from digging :)

Re: Disease or not?
 

I've seen symptoms like that, but by the time the plant finally get's established it's a long ago memory. Potting soil can be notoriously variable and cause all kinds of weird things to happen.

Re: Disease or not?
 

I don't think your plants are suffering from a virus. Instead, you are suffering from an overboard media story.

Re: Disease or not?
 

overboard media story?

Re: Disease or not?
 

Thank you very much all of you for your replies!

Its great to hear that Nicolas! Did such symptoms never appear again on established plants or their suckers?

Thank you very much Richard! I certainly prefer that than them actually having a disease. I dont have as much experience with growing bananas as you and others here so i cant know whats ''normal'' for them to do and what happens next. I can read my palms and know when to worry and when not but i have come to know this through some years of experience. I dont have such experience with bananas. Please bear with me and my questions :)
What could have caused the above symptoms?