Jeff

I bought Lessard's book "The Complete Book of Bananas" about 10 years ago shortly after I first started growing bananas. In his book, he says that the number of fruit is determined by how much fertilizer and moisture is available at the time the inflorescence embryo is being formed in the meristem at the top portion of the pseudobulb. This happens when the plant is still quite young. After that, it doesn't matter how much water or fertilizer is applied because the number of female flowers has already been determined. Applying additional fertilizer and water after that point may help make the plant stronger and can help make the fruit bigger but will not affect the number of fruit.

I just thought this was an interesting fact and have found this to be true in my experience. I have neglected bananas when they were small, dug them up and replanted them in a better spot and fertilized and watered them heavily until they fruited and have still had small bunches of fruit from those plants.

Has anyone else experienced this?

__________________
Jeff in Costa Rica