Bob3

I just returned to CA after an extended road trip to find that a couple of the Dwarf Orinocos are not so "dwarf" any more, the one-time pups having exceeded their parents height by at least 50% & still growing.
At this rate they'll be past the eaves on the house if they escape the sun shade that's replacing the fabric of the greenhouse they winter-over in.

The parents are barely chin height & a few of the pups are well over 8' tall & still growing, no signs of a flag leaf yet.

Is this something that happens much?.
The original plants were started about 5-6 years ago.

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kcj1219

I've had that happen before to basjoos. Never to my orinoco though. I would plant it and it would pup and then the pups would outgrow the parent as it would seem to stall. Not sure why that happens. Are you measuring by leaf height or stem height?

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Bob3

Stem height; parents are well under 5', pups are way past 6' and growing faster & taller than the Blue Java out on the back lot line!

They sure are healthy looking though, but are going to catch heck come frost time.
They're pupping like crazy too.

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saltydad

,please.

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Bob3

Ya want pics, eh? Easier said than done!
There's no good vantage point to take decent pics from.

Here's an angled downward shot from out the office window; yellow line [lower left] is the top of a parent. Red line [center] is top of one of the pups-gone-crazy.
There's over 2' of difference in elevation AGL between them.



I'll try to charge up the camera with the big wide angle lens; maybe take a machete to some of the old leaves & get a shot from the end that's horizontal to ground level.
The shade fabric is too well attached to lift, but *maybe* I can stick a big light inside & shoot through the mesh tonight.

I left a couple of the old plants standing from this spring after harvesting the bananas, maybe that's what made the pups go crazy. Either that or the fertilizer I dumped on them this spring kicked them into high gear.
Or maybe it was the over-spray from some growth hormone I was using to turn some dwarf citrus trees into regular size trees...

OK, here's a pic from an end of the enclosure, after whacking a few leaves down & removing some other vegetation.
Red oval is where a bunch of 'nanners was removed this spring. The old plant has all sorts of room overhead, a couple of youngsters are pushing out the sunshade fabric.

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venturabananas

My supposed dwarf Orinoco is already 9' and no sign of a bud. Came from what I thought was a reputable nursery. I bet its pups will be even bigger. The "first ratoon" (pups off a mother plant) is almost always taller and usually makes bigger bunches than the mother plant.

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kcj1219

Any idea what it might be if its not a dwarf orinoco? Sounds a little high to not flower.

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venturabananas

I can't say for sure until it makes fruit, but I'm pretty confident it is just a regular (tall) Orinoco -- or a dwarf on steroids! There are lots of tall Orinocos around my neighborhood and it looks just like them. It's a bit disappointing only because it is in a spot where I want a dwarf banana, not a tall banana!

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Richard

My experience is that the 1st planting from a TC or modest size pup will fruit at a slightly less height than the follow-on pstem which is being served by a larger corm.

Given the location and dense packing of the plants, I'm not surprised they are reaching higher for sunlight.

If you want the dense packing of plants for visual effect, then you're doing a great job. If you are focused on fruit, then you should remove all the sprouts except one from each group serviced by a common corm. This single pstem is what you are focused on for a crop. New pups will emerge, but remove them when they get over a foot high so that the main corm is only servicing the current year crop. Once the pstem blooms, then let one of the emerging pups survive and it will bear next years' fruit.

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venturabananas

Unless I've misunderstood what Gabe has said, he has a different take on fruit production of banana mats in the home environment than Richard has. I'll try to paraphrase what I believe he's said:

A mat from which you have removed no suckers will produce just as much fruit as one pruned down to a single stem plus a follower. The difference will be that on a crowded mat, each stem will produce fewer fruit -- but the total will be about the same as a two-stem mat. The advantage of not pruning out pups for the home grower is that the banana bunches on different stems will be formed at different times, thus spreading out the availability of fruit across the year.

My understanding is that commercial producers use the one-stem plus one pup approach to minimize harvest costs, not to maximize production.

I could be wrong about this. If so, I hope Gabe will correct me.

Richard's point about plants being taller where crowded and seeking light certainly makes sense. My tall "dwarf" Orinoco certainly gets shaded by a taller tree for significant portions of the day during certain parts of the year.

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Bob3

This is a south facing wall & this year they are actually getting more overall light than years past because a couple of large shade trees had to be cut down [last summer], hence the shade fabric on the top half of the frame.
There might be an overall increase in temperature because of the extra available (though filtered) sunlight.
I suppose the 2 plants that have fruited should be removed?

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venturabananas

Commercial growers remove the plants that have fruited. Some experienced home growers (e.g., pitangadiego, Jon), leave them as long as they still have live, green tissue, on the theory that nutrients in those tissues are resorbed by the corm and redistributed to any stem still connected.

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sunfish

Are you fertilizing more than you did in the past or maybe giving them more water,or they found the septic system ?

Richard

I agree with that completely, especially the phrase "about the same". The corm has a fixed production capacity, but there will be a measurable loss of efficiency when delivered over multiple stems. The actual loss is probably insignificant in terms of number of fingers. However, if you're not in the tropics then you probably don't want your production spread out across the entire year because 1/4 to 1/2 of the crop will be temperature limited.

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Bob3

These guys do have the annoying habit of always throwing the flag leaf late in the season, making for a very lengthy hang time to harvest.
Just one of the reasons for their little wintertime "tent".

I did spike their normally bland springtime fertilizer with a couple tablespoons of potash & a little urea to get to a closer optimum mineral %, but I didn't dose them very heavily at all.

No septic system; city sewer & that exits the opposite side of the building. No leaky pipes, there's an access hatch under the building right by the bananas so it's easy to eyeball under there.

Might be watering more optimally; trying to get things dialed in with a couple shorter irrigation periods rather than 1 longer one.
They're extremely well drained in that location.

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Richard

It sounds like you have the correct N and K. In the early spring - perhaps a week before you remove your "tent", try feeding the corms phosphite. If it is not available to you, then try a source of phosphate; e.g. bone meal or a water soluble with a relatively high P in the N-P-K.

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Bob3

Update:
Just got back from another one of those lengthy road trips (month in the Keys for lobster season).
I dunno where to start; the mat is not only taller but fruiting like crazy now, 5 bunches hanging & at least 2 more new blossoms above head-height.
A visiting Brazilian says he's never seen them so big, and they do look way more prolific than any I spotted in the Keys.
Even with extensive machete work (like I had to do last season) there's no way they'll come close to fitting under the little lean-to "greenhouse" this winter.
The original plants were produced by the Monterey Bay Nursery, a wholesaler fairly local to us who has always been known to produce excellent quality, true to type plants.
Now I'm afraid to try to sprout the dwarf coconuts I shipped back...

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venturabananas

It's ironic that you said that. My "Dwarf Orinoco" was also produced by Monterey Bay Nursery. It was not Dwarf Orinoco -- it was regular (tall) Orinoco. So, not exactly true to type.

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sunfish

Produce synonyms: manufacture, make, construct, build, fabricate, put together, assemble, turn out, create

Bob3

The pieces of the mystery of the "not-so-dwarf" phenomena are starting to come together.
Did yours spring up right off the bat, or take several years to get taller, like mine did?

...and I see another new flag leaf outside the window; looks like we might have to open up a roadside stand.

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