Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

I know you can manage the pups in the mat to produce bananas every year but is there a way to arrange things so you can have plants ripening bananas at different times of the year? For instance a Spring, Summer and Fall harvest? Planting different types of banana that ripen at different times of the year would be fine by me but as far as I know all bananas pretty much ripen during the same season.

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

Theoretically, but you would really have to use the darkest magic. Bananas produce, when they are old enough, their fruiting conditions are optimal and they want to fruit.
Other than that it's difficult to "time" them. I will give it a thought and try. ;)
But when you talk about spring harvest, the conditions in winter should be spring or summer like. And that's difficult to achieve. ;)

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

I live in Zone 9a in Florida so our winters aren't too bad but it can still get chilly. It sounds like I'd need an indoor growing area in order to simulate the right conditions. How do they manage to keep ripe bananas in the store all year round? Is it basically because they can source bananas from around the world?

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

Well, the big commercial plantations here are "timed" on a grand scale - they're staggered by 100-hectare sections by planting pups of equal ages at various times of the year. (IE, when they plant pups, no matter what time of year it is, the pups are always 6 months old.) This way, each 100-hectare section fruits at a specific time-range and then they cycle them.

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

very interesting but neat

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

Ok, that sounds more like what I had in mind. I'm sure it doesn't scale perfectly but I might try something like that on my place. I'm developing an interest in planting an acre or two to bananas to sell to local specialty markets but it would work best if I could provide a small but fairly consistent supply of unusual bananas.

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

Regardless the part of USA, where the bananas can be grown, none of those parts is like Ecuador or other tropical countries.
They can afford to time plants, because they don't have winters and if they feed the nanas and irrigate in drier periods, they won't go dormant at all.
Apart from Hawai'i, there's only a very small piece of land in continental USA, particularly in Florida, that could be regarded as "tropical". It is mostly the south-east coast that deserves this classification.

Ou, Beth, tropical country. :D I know that it works like this on plantains, but the question was in USA. ;)

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

Which is why I did qualify the statement with "commercial plantations here" - it's likely not feasable in places with dormant periods for the plants.

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

Drat! I may try anyway, just to see what I get. The actual number of cold days are few and they're rarely all in a row.

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

You could have some success in a place like Florida if your using greenhouses. Technically you can anywhere with a greenhouse but its a lot more painful to heat in places that get really cold.

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

Ha. Come to New Orleans - they fruit every month somewhere.

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

A greenhouse is a lifesaver but as far as heating last winter i used a woodburnig stove it was hard to reglate the heat . this year i got me 2 17000 btu electric heaters i was having to go in and out of the greenhouse to see if the stove needed wood.

I wonder how far you'd get with an unheated greenhouse?
 

I manage to get a lot of stuff to survive in my unheated greenhouse up here in 7a. Not anything Musa, of course, since it still gets way below freezing in my greenhouse, but perhaps for you that would be enough. All I use is a poly-tunnel. You'd probably want to cover it only in Dec. and Jan. and you might be surprised how hot it gets (on sunny days you'd have to leave the door wide open). Since you get only very few light freezes and a poly-tunnel will give you all the heat you'd ever need during the day...you might just pull it off. Now, a polly tunnel is cheap, but so are bananas so you might not make money but you might have some fun!

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

Very interesting poly tunnel but it would not work for some of banana plants it would get to cold on my prayinghands apple dwarf cavendish super dwarf cavendish if it was just my calf gold an my orinco i would try it.

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

In mild winters I've had some pretty amazing results with very tender plants even with big holes in the plastic. Apparently even if your ultimate temperature gets extremely cold, it heats up so much so fast that damage does not occur. I'm not saying that the tender Musa would do well for you in a poly-tunnel for sure, but I really think it would be worth trying. You might even have to cover your Musa Dec. to March, but you might be surprized at the limited damage. I'd really be interested in see what would happen.

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

Where does on get said 'poly tunnel'?

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

Crop King

CropKing.com - Poly Tunnels | CropKing.com

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

Keep in mind that the tunnel will warm the air but the soil will still freeze depending on your conditions (ie: in NJ that's the case). This could lead to more harm than good. In a climate where the bananas may be marginally p-stem hardy this is a great idea and would be well worth the investment.

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

Not if you install heating rods in you slab.

Re: Is There A Way To Produce Bananas All Year Round?
 

True, I was thinking bare or gravel floors.