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Originally Posted by momoese
As for feeder roots are you talking about the bright furry white ones just under the surface of the soil or compost?
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Yes
Quote:
Originally Posted by momoese
I placed the shredded/chopped bananas on top of clay soil that had been amended with composted material for several years. Even after all that amending it's still hard packed clay just a feet down so it can only handle just so much water, especially being on relatively flat ground where there is little runoff. Add some cold temps and you have a real mess on your hands!
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It sounds like your corm rotted then the roots died, I've never seen roots rot before the corm starts to rot. The roots will thrive with high moisture.
Maybe the problem was as a simple as "you shredded/chopped" and I crushed.
Crushing will break all the water cells which allows the feeder roots to enter the fibers.
A crushed pseudostem will breakdown much quicker than a chopped one.
As for hard packed clay, my ground is like concrete. I don't dig, I drill a hole for the corm and build my soil above the existing surface level.
Most of my experimenting is done on slabs of concrete, if it works on concrete it will work in field.
It is such a perfect method for growing bananas, I'm disappointed it doesn't work on the mainland.