Pups surpassing mother in growth normal?
 

I have a rhino horn that started pupping early in spring and now the pups are about to surpass the mother. Is this normal? In a sense I'm happy because I was able to relocate a fully grown pup, but I'm thinking the original plant might be sick. It still spits out cigars, but ever so slow compared to the other two.

here are some pics:
April 13

Today

Transplanted (buried about 2' deep)


Any thoughts?

Re: Pups surpassing mother in growth normal?
 

bump... anyone? i can take better pics if that helps

Re: Pups surpassing mother in growth normal?
 

it happens to me with orinocos on occasion..using less vigorous sucker pups...just as an experiment I started a small matt of orinocos with a water sucker...grew fine,but the sword pups it produced out grew and flowered before mother..could be you started with less vigorous mother to start..my 2 cents

Re: Pups surpassing mother in growth normal?
 

I don't think its anything to worry about. For me, the second generation has always been more hardy than the first in terms of growth rate, height, and girth. You could always chop down the mother p-stem and just let the second generation take over.

Re: Pups surpassing mother in growth normal?
 

hmm... you might be right. i think it was a weaker pup that i planted.

that might be the best option. thanks :08:

Re: Pups surpassing mother in growth normal?
 

Could be an insect problem.

Re: Pups surpassing mother in growth normal?
 

thanks. you grow a lot of bananas including arh... has this been your experience in the past?

i think i will chop it and dissect it. i was hesitant because the last couple of leaves have been larger, but the leaves on the pups are just as big.

Re: Pups surpassing mother in growth normal?
 

There could actually be many reasons, a rainy season with poor drainage could be another.

Before chopping it down, I would remove and inspect a sample of the corm and then decide what to do.

Re: Pups surpassing mother in growth normal?
 

It's happened to me a couple of times with mother plants that suffered by being planted at a bad time, in autumn. In spring, the mother was slow to grow, but the pups took off. I'm sure there could be other reasons. In my case, it wasn't really a problem, but the mother plants continued to be slow growers, bloomed at a small size, and didn't make a big bunch.

Re: Pups surpassing mother in growth normal?
 

Transplanting is stressful. It is quite common for the transplanted plant to be surpassed by the pups, which have not had that stress.

Re: Pups surpassing mother in growth normal?
 

Thanks a lot guys. I appreciate all the responses.