After reading this thread out of my personal boredom, I am gonna dive in and tell y'all what I think.
In the case of this cultivar and that, the only way is to create a data base of the physical aspects of the plant. This is what I have done since I got into 'naners. You get a plant, record it photographically from the first stage of growth as a pup. Then do it till it fruits. The following are the important things you have to record.
Juvenile stage
1. Leaf shape in growth.
2. Leaf markings.
Adult stage
1. Overall view of plant.
2. Close up of top and bottom surface of the leaf.
3. Comparison shot of the leaf apex and leaf base with petiole.
4. General color of the plant.
5. Close up of the top and whole p-stem
6. Flower bud
7. Immature fruit
8. Matured fruit -
whole -
sliced length wise with skin -
sliced across with skin.
9. Record the
taste of the fruit with a particular one as the comparison. Always used the selected fruit as a comparison to the later ones you taste. This gives you a standard of measure of sort.
From the above pix you can access the characteristics such as the waxyness of the leaf, color of the p-stem in different stages of growth, especially adult stage. Once you get this data, it's not hard to identify a non fruiting plant.
Remember my
Drwaf Friuting thingy? I kept asking about the p-stem color diff between the SDC and the DC and no one responded? I realised that no one did actually noticed this characteristic on cultivars. Of course Gabe came in and showed pix of the plant in question and solved the whole thing.
With what I have done on the M'sian cultivars, now I can say I can tell apart the cultivars at a distance just by looking at them and spotting their unique characteristics. Next thing I am doing is I am going to do the same for the Thai ones and then compare them to the M'sian ones. It's fun! Try it and you will enjoy looking at 'naner plants more.
Btw, I can distinguish the all local species from a distance of 500 metres away. I will always tell my business partner, Francis, as we are driving around what species or cultivars in the village or jungle areas are, and I am correct 90% of the time. It has become a game to me and I enjoy it very much. No jokes, not that I am
good as some will say, but I took the trouble to be observant. Ok, do it like the way you look at chicks and try to figure out their stats.....
