Nutrient deficiency? Disease? Help please!
 

I have some young dwarf namwah planted in Southwest Florida and many of them show this strange discoloration in the emerging leaves. Any thoughts on what may be causing this? The bananas are planted in sandy soil with a LOT of compost and mulch. I've been fertilizing with a 6-2-6.

Thank you!

Re: Nutrient deficiency? Disease? Help please!
 

Probably needs more of everything. Where I live the banana mixes are 13-3-37 and 10-5-40. Obviously your soil is different. It actually looks kind of like a mysore with banana streak virus. While all my mysores are affected, none are that severely affected.

Re: Nutrient deficiency? Disease? Help please!
 

Thanks for your response. Does the banana streak virus negatively affect the plant vigor or yield?

Re: Nutrient deficiency? Disease? Help please!
 

Not that I can tell. Do the undersides of the leaves have reddish color to them? It doesn't really look like it on the cigar leaf. BSV was just a guess anyway. Was just looking at Dwarf Namwah in my yard and the midribs on yours seem too red. Try fertilizer with higher numbers, especially K and maybe it will grow out of it.

Re: Nutrient deficiency? Disease? Help please!
 

I use this as a guide to Nutrient deficiency, it seems to be pretty accurate. When I give whatever the deficiency in this document requires to alleviate the symptoms, it usually goes away. That does look sort of virus like, but I have discovered deficiencies cause some pretty weird stuff to happen.
http://www.haifa-group.com/files/guides/banana.pdf

Re: Nutrient deficiency? Disease? Help please!
 

Go to Diamond R and get their banana fert 6-3-16 with minors. Solves a lot of problems. Fert monthly for 10 months except Dec and Jan.

Tailored for S Fla soil.