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Originally Posted by Jose263
Mauro - I've never tried grafting bananas -but I do graft other plants - typically grafting is done to change the rootstock to a different variety -like adding apple or pear scions to a tree. So, what do you expect to get by joining two corms and pstems? I can see possibly developing new species via pollinating the flowers? just wondering?
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Hi Jose263! Gardening has been my hobby for the past 40 years. About 30 years ago I learned how to graft citrus fruits and other kinds of tropical fruits such as mangos, avocados, jabuticabas, etc., so I'm pretty familiar with the grafting method but sometimes I would get a "Chimera", ( an individual, organ, or part consisting of tissues of diverse genetic constitution), especially with the citrus plants. For example, I grafted the Chinese little lemon called Calamansi on the Okinawan Shikwasa which is a little orange. The Shikwasa is very vigorous because it's native in Okinawa so I used it as the stock. As the scion was the Calamansi, I expected my grafted plants to produce only Calamansi, but sometimes I picked fruits that where neither Calamansi nor Shikwasa, they were Chimeras, that is a cross-bred variety. Conclusion: Sometimes the stock can produce effects on the scion. So I got the idea that by joining the corms of two different types of banana plants by one chance in a million I would get a "Chimera" with the bananas, that is a cross-bred variety. This is just a very remote hypothesis but I believe it can happen if it happens with the citrus plants which I know is a fact. I haven't had any luck yet because at present I live in a cold region of Japan but in the other hand I have plenty of Basjoo specimens to experiment with. I would like to mention that the term grafting I used for my experiments is not correct. I will also try to polinate the basjoo with other types of edible bananas. Thank you for commenting on my impossible dream. Best Wishes to all. Mauro Gibo