Gabe15

Based on that photo and the fact that much of Florida (end elsewhere in the Southern US) is abundant with 'Orinoco', the question in my mind really isn't whether or not this plant is an 'Orinoco', but rather, is it a unique form of 'Orinoco'? (spoiler alert: I’m doubtful)

'Orinoco' as we tend to know it is a member of the Bluggoe subgroup of bananas with an ABB genome composition. As with all banana subgroups, there are countless cultivars/cones which are all very similar to each other, typically with only relatively minor variations between them. To determine if two potentially identical clones are indeed identical or unique, they need to be grown out side by side in replication over at least 2 fruiting cycles and compared morphologically using the standard descriptors for Musa. However, mentioned in another recent post, differences that may not be reflected in morphology can be difficult to detect, which just complicates it further. This would be quite a complex task to achieve in reality for the average hobbyist. There currently is no cheap or simple way to distinguish banana cultivars from one another within a subgroup using DNA-based assays.

All of this is further complicated by the question of what do we mean when we refer to the cultivar 'Orinoco'. Surely, there are variations within the common 'Orinoco' in the US, but what are they? And how does "Seminole" compare? It is a red flag to me that there is no comparison given between ‘Orinoco’ and “Seminole”, and even though Stokes now only offers a small number of banana cultivars, they used to have many, among them was ‘Orinoco’, so I would expect them to know what’s so special about “Seminole” vs. common ‘Orinoco’. The description and photo of “Seminole” could be used verbatim for common ‘Orinoco’. But you can’t sell ‘Orinoco’ for $50 a plant.

I’ve had many people come to me claiming to have unique banana cultivars, but almost every time, upon inspection it is clear to me they have a very ordinary plant, usually they are not very familiar with banana diversity and simply do not know what to compare it to, but it might be impressive or unique to them, and so they dub it a new and unique cultivar.

If we also consider that Agri-Starts seems to be the primary supplier of TC plantlets to retail nursery sellers of banana plants throughout the US, then that is another issue as in my experience with Agri-Starts in the past, they really do not know what they are selling and have no controls such as routine field grow-outs to check for off-types, and subsequently I would conclude they do not renew their tissue culture lines. This is very important as mutant off-types, which are usually not improvements, occur frequently in banana tissue culture lines, and so the result is that tissue cultured plants being produced unchecked by field verification tend to loose vigor and robustness over time. It could be that "Seminole" is the same clone that the mass-propagated 'Orinoco' started out as in the US, but the tissue culture lines have drifted and deteriorated in quality, thus making "Seminole" look robust and unique. But if that is the case, we should also expect that it is the same as other long-planted 'Orinoco' plants throughout Florida and other states.

I don't mean to write all this to try and say that "Seminole" is an outright scam, but I do get a strong feeling that it is a poorly investigated plant, and it's potential uniqueness and novelty is doubtful to me. Don't be surprised if you grow one and it is identical or nearly so to your common 'Orinoco'. It has a nice story to go along with it which gives it a sense of authority, but I have many stories for how I came across various plants, but that does not inherently make them novel.

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