JoeReal

Whacking it at the base after you harvest gives the clump a very good aesthetic look. The usual practice in most banana plantations that I am familiar with in the Philippines is that they whack it midway the pseudostem during harvest. The theory behind this is that the remaining nutrients in the trunk will be translocated to the growing pups. If the pseudostem is cut all the way to the base, you will have less nutrient and stored energy translocated back to the mother corm and the pup. The remaining portion that was cut is mulched around the mat. Very unsightly to look at, but who cares if you want to maximize yield and minimize fertilizer inputs. This is also the reason why they don't bother taking out leaves that are old and starting to turn yellow, they wait for the plants to naturally translocate the nutrients and carbohydrates in the leaves to other parts where needed. The only time the leaves are taken off is that when they are totally dried out or will shade out the new pups.

For us homegrowers, we want beauty or something pleasing to look at, so we whack them at the base after taking the fruits, take out any unsightly leaves, and to compensate, we must apply more nutrients than what commercial banana growers do.