Bananas.org - View Single Post - For a Banana, What Determines Market Viability?

Nicolas Naranja · 06-28-2015, 09:31 PM

The cavendish is remarkably uniform and it stays green. In the summer I will harvest Nam Wah on Monday and it will be turning yellow on Wednesday. Cavendish will probably still be kind of green next Wednesday. That is a pretty important characteristic for commercial shippers when the final market is 3 weeks away. Also, pedicel strength is very important. A lot of banana varieties will break at the pedicel when ripe. It's a major problem with FHIA-1. Also some varieties have a tendency to split open. Manzano is actually a terrible variety for shipping but there is enough demand to deal with it. It splits, it breaks at the pedicel, and you can't eat it until it is turning black. If we had a lot more southeast asians in this country you might see Nam Wah be a bigger variety in the grocery stores.

The other thing about Cavendish is it out yields just about everything else. I rarely harvest a bunch of Cavendish under 40 lbs. For Nam Wah, I am very happy with a 40 lbs bunch.

06-28-2015, 09:31 PM	#3 (permalink)
Nicolas Naranja Muck bananas Nicolas Naranja's Photo Gallery Location: Pahokee, FL Find me on the map! Zone: 10 Name: Nick Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 2,217 BananaBucks : 604,227 Feedback: 7 / 100% Said "Thanks" 66 Times Was Thanked 5,665 Times in 1,563 Posts Said "Welcome to Bananas" 7 Times	Re: For a Banana, What Determines Market Viability? The cavendish is remarkably uniform and it stays green. In the summer I will harvest Nam Wah on Monday and it will be turning yellow on Wednesday. Cavendish will probably still be kind of green next Wednesday. That is a pretty important characteristic for commercial shippers when the final market is 3 weeks away. Also, pedicel strength is very important. A lot of banana varieties will break at the pedicel when ripe. It's a major problem with FHIA-1. Also some varieties have a tendency to split open. Manzano is actually a terrible variety for shipping but there is enough demand to deal with it. It splits, it breaks at the pedicel, and you can't eat it until it is turning black. If we had a lot more southeast asians in this country you might see Nam Wah be a bigger variety in the grocery stores. The other thing about Cavendish is it out yields just about everything else. I rarely harvest a bunch of Cavendish under 40 lbs. For Nam Wah, I am very happy with a 40 lbs bunch. __________________ Some people go bananas, I went plantains.