Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

As far as I understand it if you were able to keep a banana plant from going dormant in the winter it would flower and ripen fruit in the same year. That suggests to me that fruiting is determined by the maturity of the plant, not by the season.

If that is the case would it be possible to plant two or three groups of bananas three months apart and thereby get several harvests throughout the year instead of all at once?

Re: Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

yes its a time thing they fruit at a certain time the hole idea of leaving pups on the mother corm is so you get fruit at intervals pups left on mom fruit faster then one cut off so if you let three stay on the mom you should get a harvest every year planting out pups at odd times of the year one often gets fruit at the wrong times this all is why some bananas fruit at bad times like in the fall when its to cold to ripen ones you get a well established clump and maintain it fruiting should occur regularly in the spring off the previous years pups is that clear sounding i went at that in a convoluted way LOL

i forgot to mention that different variate's fruit at different rates some take 12 months wail there are others types that can take up to 36 months to mature so when you picking your variates its good to take this in to account or say you buy all long maturing plants its going to be years before you get fruit but ones a clump starts to produce it should be every year if you are timing the pups
i let fist pup stay second one depending on how long an intervals was between it and the first pup i like to go for 3 moth intervals cutting the extra pups off at the ground so when a pup comes up at the next best time i let it grow that way you have pups that are at least 3 months apart so you get fruit at the right times but i live in zone 9 so my management tecnique may not be right for your climate are winters are vary milde staying mostly above freezing so i have a long growing season are starts feb15 and goes threw Dec 15 so theoretically i could get more then one crop in a year with multiple clumps i hope thats clear if you don't understand all do my best to explain it better

Re: Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

Awesome! I think I'm going to get serious and work on getting an acre of bananas planted. I'll do the prep work now but I want to wait and see which varieties I planted this year do the best over the winter.

Re: Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

that sounds good take your time make a plan its all to easy just to buy plants Willy nilly thats what i did and i had to learn allot in the process of trying not to kill them try planting them out in the spring i think you will be happier with there growth and they will have time to get established before the heat of summer comes along other wise you are going to have to water allot to keep them alive and out of Photorespiration

Re: Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

True. Typically between the 30th and 40th leaf.

In theory. In practice, you need to provide an equatorial climate free of violent weather, pests, and diseases.

Re: Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

Yeah, it's definitely related to maturity and not season. Bananas can produce at any time of the year. Like Paulo said, the age to maturity/fruiting differs for various species. Proper mat maintenance can ensure more regular fruiting, but I don't know how well the 'planting 3 months apart' thing would work. I'm sure you could get fair results, but I doubt fruiting would necessarily coincide perfectly due to all the other conditions at play (weather, seasonal climate changes, fertilizer, soil quality, etc).

If you are serious about having a large number of plants for productive fruiting, I would contact Dr. Nelson about getting a copy of his DVD. Information about it can be found in this thread. The video explains in great detail the methods used by commercial banana plantations to maximize yield and sustainability.

Re: Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

thanks guys i probably did not explain that clearly i don't mean plating out at 3 months i met letting three months go between pups emerging off the mother corm i kill pups that come up to close to gather or i let them grow out and cut them off the mother what I'm trying to do is to get pups at regaler intervals growing out at various stages of age that way i get fruit in succession and i don't get multiple clumps all fruiting at the same time

I don't know about you but i cant eat 500LB of bananas all at one time

But on the other hand who's to say when a plant will fruit you just do what you can to try and increase the likely hood that they will do what you want them to do good clump management is always dependent on the Eye of the beholder don't you think

Re: Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

Nah, actually I was responding to content from the original post...not your comments, so no worries!

Re: Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

I'll be satisfied to have any of my bananas at anytime of the year. I've been waiting for so long where I live. And Patty is waiting for her first flower in more than 3 years.
So again, I'll be happy to have a flower at anytime of the year because to me each banana I think has a mind of its own. They will flower when they are ready.
So it depends where you live do bananas flower at their own time. I have 4 of my bananas flowered all of them at winter time. In different years.

Re: Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

did the ripen for you ?

Re: Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

a related but slightly different question:

If bananas fruiting is based on maturity, as Richard and many others have said previously... often between 30-40 leaves, does cutting off the pstem and replanting the corm change anything?

Say a particular nana was going to flower at 30 leaves and it was cut down at 20. When the corm regrows, will it flower at 10 leaves?
Basically the same question: if it usually flowers at 8 feet of pstem height and was cut down at 6 feet height, will it want to flower after a foot of new growth?

just curious, as I planted a couple of big corms recently.

aaron

Re: Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

The life of the plant is in the corm. The leaves are just solar panels. The corm needs to accumulate energy over time to mature and produce the bloom. Cutting the p-stem will cause a time delay and perhaps necessitate a few more leaves.

Re: Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

From what I gather die offs, cut backs and transplanting reset the plant's development. Maybe not back to zero, but it definitely sets it back some. That ties into my plan. I expect to be planting mostly baby banana plants as those seems to be what is affordable and available in quantity to me. By planting one section several months after the other I hope to get them to develop slightly out of synch with eachother. Then as the mats get established I'll manage the pups for different stages of maturity. I think I'll try to get a copy of that video too.

Re: Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

Even in practice it's quite difficult, speaking from personal experience. Under ideal conditions, where it doesn't drought out or rain so hard that the topsoil washes out, and given a pest-free environ, it is very difficult to plant for continuous or contiguous fruiting. I'm still trying to figure it out, because of the 10 or so varieties I grow, very few are on the same timing schedules (Gros Michel, for example, is far slower than Orito) which makes timing harvests very tricky. Timing is rarely even the same for pups of the same mother, because of all the other variables involved.

Re: Is Fruiting Determined By Season Or Maturity?
 

Interesting. I have a Mysore that popped a bloom at the end of last August and 6 months later we enjoyed the bananas. Now the next pup behind it got WAY bigger than the first one and I had given up hope it was going to fruit. Sure enough the exact same time of year it popped a flag leaf and now I am watching the bananas come out. I will be eating bananas again in February. I really thought it waited until the weather was hot enough and it popped a flag. Now it has another pup very close in size I wonder if it will pop out a flag leaf soon. Hmmm?