asacomm

These are the pictures of the fruits of Helen's hybrid after 120 days of a
seedless experiment by a vegetable hormone.





Observing the second picture,the experiment seems to have succeeded
as no solid seeds are found and onlly very tiny grains of seeds.

However the question is why the fruits did not grow as they should do in
this period of 120 days. They never seem to have grown for 120 days and
seem to be too much young.

Gabe15

They did not grow because they were not pollinated. Edible seedless bananas result from two separate events, one being the failure of fertilization (derived from many mechanisms) which results in lack of seed, and the second is parthenocarpy which results in growth and development of the fruit independent of fertilization.

In your experiment, there was no fertilization so of course there are no seeds. But the reason they didn't is because they are not parthenocarpic. Although you applied hormone to the exterior of the fruit, and it may have some type of effect on fruit growth, it is not a mimic of what happens during parthenocarpy and so cannot be regarded as equivalent.

From the progress of the small experiments you have performed though, we can begin to infer some important things. More plants will need to fruit and be observed to confirm these observations, but this is the picture that is starting to form.

1. It is fertile and will set seeds when pollinated.

2. 'Helen's Hybrid' is not an edible banana. It is not parthenocarpic, it requires fertilization and seed development for fruit to develop.

3. Whether or not there really was an edible (parthenocarpic) cultivar involved in it's origins does not matter in terms of edibility, as it does not seem to be parthenocarpic.

4. 'Helen's Hybrid' is much closer to a wild banana than any domesticated edible cultivar. It may even be a wild species.

There are still some questions regarding whether or not it is even a hybrid or not. From the very beginning since these seeds started coming onto the market, I was very doubtful they were an "edible, cold hardy banana you can grow from seed". These things just don't add up. For a banana to be able to be grown from seed easily almost automatically discounts it from being edible (parthenocarpic). The situation where you could really have an edible banana that you could grow seeds true to type would require a self-compatible, fertile, parthenocarpic plant. However, this is very rare and in order to end up with something like this, someone would have to add deliberately worked for a rather long time on actually breeding it, which is highly unlikely and has never been mentioned in it's (already weak) background information. Additionally, the word "hybrid" is thrown around a lot and used when it ought not to be used, as is the case of the Cavendish banana 'Williams' which also goes by the name 'Williams Hybrid' even though there is nothing justifiably "hybrid" about it.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

asacomm

Many thanks for your comment, Gabe, and I do well understood all what
you mentioned.

As it was clear by my previous experiments that the banana was not
parthenocarpic, I knew that it must be pollinated to keep the fruits growing.
But on the other hand, my friend succeeded in making "Velutina" seedless
by "Tomatotone" hormone and thus the velutina became ripe without seeds
and he eat it like ordinary edible banana.
This fact was the motivation for starting my seedless experiment with Helen's
hybrid.

Now the question is why it was posssible with "Velutina", but why not with
"Helen's hybrid"?

51st state

Does anyone have any info on the origin of the name?
It is a plant of Indian origin (or at least a plant with Indian parents) and 'Helen' is not an obviously Indian name.
I have asked both Ganesh Mani Paradhan and Kenibreed in the past, but neither have an answer.

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jeffreyp

asacom,

I think as with basjoo, if the fruits are not pollinated they will not develop properly. Why is this? Perhaps when pollination occurs this sets in motion growth factors within the fruit itself to produce conditions (plump fruit) suitable for the fertilized embryos (seeds).

Jeff

Caloosamusa

Congratulations Asacomm,

Good research often raises as many questions as it attempts to answer!

RobG7aChattTN

Also bear in mind that most species bananas are 90% seed, so if you remove the seeds, you get a banana that is 10% the size of a seeded fruit.