Jananas Bananas

A fresh picture of the first Velutina seedling - getting another leaf!



~JaNan

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Jananas Bananas

Jananas Bananas

More sprouts - this is day 57 after I received them the day after Thanksgiving. These have been in a moist ziplock baggie with bottom heat. I have had ZERO sprouts in the moist paper towel method, and ZERO directly sown in the peat pots on the heat mat with the contained moisture (mini greenhouse) with bottom heat from the heat mat, and ZERO directly sown into seed starter potting soil in cups under grow lights.

Sooooo......if you are not having any luck with these, you might try the baggie method. To give it a try, just put a few (8 or so) into a baggie with a few drops of water and zip it up. Set it on top of your hot water heater and check on them once a week. The moisture will probably get a little brown like a weak tea. When they start looking like an outee belly button they have started to sprout. (I have a picture posted of this stage if you scroll down) Don't remove them untill they look like spiders. I use tweezers to separate them, be careful because they are very fragile. If you remove them too soon they will immediately turn brown and you will have lost your sprout.







Put into peat pots and into the mini greenhouse on bottom heat




Note: My first sprout (all the earlier pictures) died after I knocked off a grow light onto it and it fell to the floor.

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Jananas Bananas

Kaye-ccf

Thanks for sharing the info about how your different methods worked! I had good results at the beginning, especially in the seed sprouter, but also in soil after soaking. The first batch germinated well, but subsequent ones, whether in the sprouter, soaking in water, or planted in soil after soaking did not fare as well.

I'm thinking that the earlier collected seeds were more viable. Remember I'm in Zone 7b and we had a late frost/freeze, which allowed me to collect loads of seeds. The subsequent seeds had a much poorer germination rate. I just threw out a few hundred seeds that I gave up on. So including your results, I think that seeds collected earlier (before cooler temps) and sprouted in moisture have the best germination rate.

And I am aware that those lucky souls who live in warmer zones and consider velutina to be a weed think I'm silly to be trying so hard to understand how to propagate these. But I love the pink flowers and bananas! I think they are a very desirable garden plant, especially for those of us who are limited in the selection of bananas hardy to our zones. Those of us in Zone 7 love to find plants that give us a tropical look and will also overwinter without extreme measures.

Jananas Bananas

OK here is another group of my little "banana spiders" that I am transferring from the moisture baggie to peat pots and seed starting potting soil - 1/29/10. Since I am having good luck sprouting I am going to plant some directly into the cups with starting potting soil. They will be misted daily and covered with a clear dome to maintain humidity.

Before untangling







Starting to untangle


This one in the center is already turning brown - they are very fragile at this stage and you have to work quickly.


These are the sprouts that I put into the peat post on the 23rd. They are leaning towards the window and I rotate the mini greenhouse to keep them straight.




Kaye, I have been very pleased with the seeds you sent me!!! I think it is very interesting with the results and the methods I am using. I don't consider them weeds and am tickled that I am having such good luck with them.

~JaNan

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Jananas Bananas

novisyatria

very cool. thanks for uploads this photo

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Novi Syatria
Lab of Tissue Culture , Dept of Forestry, Faculty of Agriculture, Univercity of Bengkulu, Indonesia www.kuljar.com email: novi_syatria@yahoo.com

jeffreyp

I think I might have a plant thats about ready to flower, I'll send out a note if anyone wants some seeds.

Jananas Bananas

That would be great Jeffreyp! I am sure there are more folks that want to try this.

I have had a couple of PM questions that I would like to answer. I soaked the seeds 24 to 48 hours before all starting conditions. I believe heat is the key to sprouting. The lighting varies between morning sun coming in through a bay window and a single bar fluorescent lighting that I adjust by setting it on different size vases (which is how it got knocked off ).

These are the sprouts from the January 23 posting - you can see they are growing at different rates - there is a teeny one that is barely 1/4 inch above the peat and another that is only a fraction taller. The big one (inbetween the two tiny ones) is touching the top of the minigreenhouse. I will be transferring several of these to cups today.






These are the sprouts put directly into the seed starting potting soil skipping the mini greenhouse step

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Jananas Bananas

sunfish

Two more sprouts

kemistry

austinl01 and everyone, I'm happy to report that I see my first sprout today

i'll post picture when it pushs its first leaf... woohoo

millworkman

So it seems that these are much easier to germinate than other banana varieties? I am very interested if anyone has some spare seeds they can throw my way, I'll send sase.

Noah

jmoore

They are if they're fresh. Infact someone on here described them as weeds. The seeds lose viability very quickly though after about six months. They aren't the species to pop up after a year of doing nothing.

Jananas Bananas

2/18/10 These are the sprouts that were put directly into the cups with the seed starter mix skipping the mini greenhouse and bottom heat:



These are sprouts that I have not removed from the moist baggie. I have never left them in the baggie this long without transferring to peat pots or seed starter mix.





~JaNan

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Jananas Bananas

kemistry

OMG another one popping up today. I feel like doing a banana dance right now -->

yay.

kemistry

janan - that baggie doesn't have anything in it, but seeds and a few drops of water? amazing! I dont think I would have the courage to leave them in there for that long. Lol.

sunfish

Germinated with outdoor temps

sunfish

natej740

Im at 3 months now and no luck i have a seed sprouting mini greenhouse and tried the baggie idea.....and still nothing.

Dean W.

Wow! Last year I had the hardest time getting those to sprout.

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natej740

Did they ever sprout and if they did how long did it take??? I thought these were supposed to be one of the easiest bananas to germinate.

Dean W.

I can't remember exactly. But I do remember some seeds just stayed there forever.

I got them from another guy here. He processed them in a blender. From what I understand it's hard to remove the seeds from the pulp.

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