Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles G.
Would planting it side ways or even upside down work?
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The technique you're describing would absolutely work and it will work great.
I call all the techniques of adjusting the angle of the apical meristem the cincinnana.
This is out of respect to the great banana mind from lower Ohio. This member often posted a photo of potted banana plants that blew over during a high wind event and after some time the pseudostems bent upwards as the apical meristems adjusted
Quote:
Originally Posted by PR-Giants
The cincinnana technique is going to be used to propagate this banana because of it's girth. It's a quick way to move the apical meristem in large bananas.
Most banana growers have experienced this technique and usually not by choice.  |
Planting it upside down,
aka changing the angle 180 degrees will affect the apical meristem but because most of the auxiliary meristems under the existing leaf sheats are also in the same area this technique will have a negative impact for propagating most of those auxiliary meristems.
Planting it side ways
this would not be ideal for this rhizome because it's very large and would have a high lateral resistance working against the apical meristem. This angle would work great for small plants/rhizomes as shown in cincinnana's photo because of the lower lateral resistance.
The quickest way to understand lateral resistance is by completely removing it. If a rhizome was perfectly split through the apical meristem and the two halves were planted flat side up, both pieces of the apical meristem would perform a 90 degree turn upwards.
In these examples if 180 is bad and 90 is better, then finding the optimal angle becomes easier. And this is the most important part, that angle can easily be adjusted throughout the process as lateral resistance changes.