Quote:
Originally Posted by harveyc
Gabe, in prior discussions which you have been involved in, it's been said that cutting back a banana forces it to "reset" and delay fruiting. At Whacking to shorten mature height? you wrote "unless it is close to flowering" it will be reset. Is there some way to gauge how close is close enough, if you're trying to lower fruiting height? Is cutting back a common practice in some places to reduce fruiting height?
Thanks,
Harvey |
Harvey has it right. If the flower bud is already initiated, you cannot reverse it and it will come out but there are leaves ahead of it. The reset only works if the plant is young enough that it has not come close to initiating the flower bud. I have noticed that the leaves generally stop growing taller when they hit sun light, and if there is a bud close behind then it will fruit at a lower height. But if it is a young plant and did not have any flower bud initiation, then it will continue to build pseudostem height long enough to reach the normal height. So, to a point, you can cut the plants to dwarf them, but in turn you are critically depriving them of photo synthetic capacity. The real issue is just cutting them at the right time, which I suppose comes with experience!