mnorell

Bigdog—

Thanks for the info. I guess I’ll just cut the rest of the inflorescence (it's on to the male flowers now) and let nature take its course. Last year I had three bunches on the Orinocos, the last bloomed about 1 August, and matured on the tree without a problem. But this doesn’t bode too well considering we have at best about two months until ol’ Jack comes to visit…so I’ll cut them down at that point and try the top-of-the-refrigerator technique. This bunch is a small one, only three hands, so it’s not that much of a loss, but hopefully I can at least get something out of it.

P.S. How do you get fruiting stalks up in 7a Tennessee? I’m assuming you lift and store…I lost most of my mature stalks last winter because, I think, even though the low was only 23 here, it was wet, grey and chilly for about six solid weeks. For some weird reason the “teenaged” stalks survived right next to the big old pseudostems that were rotten to the core!