Quote:
Originally Posted by Tytaylor77
You know what my thoughts are!! Since I'm the one that says CUT!!!
|
Welp, after speaking to many of the reputable banana experts/veterans here, I went ahead an removed the largest pup as an experiment. About half the folks said remove it and the other half advised not to mess with the roots. I definitely leaned on and agreed with the side of not messing with it but I thought it would be a great opportunity to experiment in my Georgia climate. I really had nothing to lose since the flower was growing so slow with my average frost time of the beginning of November approaching. If it continued to grow this slow, no chance of bananas. It it grows a little faster, maybe a chance to have bananas.
During my banana growing experience (3 years), I've found that the bananas in my yard tend to grow a little more robust and taller if I leave the pups on. I know this goes against what we've all been reading here but it's the results I have in my yard here 35 miles northeast of Atlanta, Georgia. The difference isn't really noticeable unless I compare the same cultivar side by side and I'm guessing this also depends on the cultivar. Maybe leaving them on outweighs root recovery time for the mother in my soil - who knows.
The pup I removed was my largest VC pup at 3.5 feet tall and very stout. I'm sure someone is wondering why I didn't remove it sooner but I wanted larger and smaller VC pups for next year so I can have early and late summer VC bananas. This will be the plan for my VCs every year for a continuous cycle of this type of banana. This little peeper was so close to the pup that I had to pop it off to make a clean cut from the mother. It had some corm but no roots yet obviously. It's worth a try to see if it makes it
They were removed like a surgeon with my new Razorback trenching shovel. This is slightly longer and skinnier then my old trenching shovel and it made a HUGE difference. I only saw one mother root cut. The little bit of difference made a very large impact regarding root damage and glad I spent the money on it.