Basjoofriend

Hi,

in another thread I wrote about hardy fruit banana hybrids with basjoo parentage.

We really need very hardy fruit bananas which are as hardy as basjoo and hardier than sikkimensis for cold climate like Germany, France, U.K., Netherlands, northern states of the U.S., Argentina, Southern Chile, in the highlands of South Brazil, New Zealand, Southern Australia, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia (in the south), Switzerland, Austria, Hungaria and other colder countries.

Helen's Hybrid is good, but not hardy enough to get a very hardy fruit bananas, better basjoo. Best might be:

basjoo x sikkimensis
basjoo x Helen's Hybrid
basjoo x Chini Champa
basjoo x FHIA-01
basjoo x FHIA-02
basjoo x FHIA-03

Also you can try:
basjoo x xishuangbanaensis
basjoo x itinerans Indian Form
basjoo x yunnanensis
basjoo x balbisiana

You have to use basjoo to cross! basjoo is diploid and FHIA-01 is tetraploid. If you try cross basjoo with FHIA-01, then you might get one triploid hardy and disease resistant fruit banana.

It is not possible to cross diploid with triploid. Dwarf Orinoco is triploid, also Dwarf Brazilian is triploid. But you can try it, take pollen from Dwarf Orinoco or Dwarf Brazilian to basjoo. Better you take pollen from sikkimensis, Helen's Hybrid, Chini Champa and FHIA cultivars to basjoo. Before you give the pollen to the basjoo, you must castrate the basjoo. To castrate the basjoo, you have to cut the forming male flowers off. After the pollinating the female flowers you have to pack the stalk into one plastic bag to protect the cross.

I also will try it in South Brazil. I am planning to buy a house with 3619 square metres in Lucianópolis.

You can grow basjoo from seed, no problem. I also grew one basjoo from seed with success, the plant is 3 years old.

But Gabe15 is right, it is not very simple to breed hardy bananas, but give a try!

Best wishes
Basjoofriend