larry

Hello All:

My name is Larry. I am a retired Psychologist, 2007, who just moved to Arizona. I planted one Rajapuri and three Mysore Banana plants and they have doubled in size in less than three weeks. What do I use for fertilizer? they get 2-3 hours of indirest sunlight daily.

mskitty38583

welcome larry! welcome to the best banana info spot on the planet.i believe you can use any balanced fert.( all the numbers the same like 20-20-20, 10-10-10) or you can use a top dressing of compost, or chopped up fresh green veggies like shredded cabbage and chopped up fresh spinach. i like to use organic compost w/ composted cow poop for my outside nanas. and i use the cabbage and spinach for my inside nanas. im sure everyone has their fav. ferts they use.

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WELCOME TO THE GATOR NATION

Richard

Hi Larry,

Welcome to the forum. Good choice of fruiting bananas!

Fruiting varieties planted in the ground need about about 1 lb of available Nitrogen per year, a scant amount of Phosphorus, 1.5 lbs of available Potash, plus minor amounts of secondary and trace minerals. An ideal N-P-K formula would be 32-1-48, applied monthly for a total of 3 pounds per year (since it has 32% ~= 1/3 available Nitrogen by weight). You won't find this produced commercially. The good news is that the bananas plants will largely ignore excess Phosphorus so that you could cheaply buy a palm or citrus food with an N-P-K of 8-4-8 or 8-6-8 and all the minor elements (e.g., Vigoro or GroPower) and apply it monthly at a rate of 1 cup per plant (or 3 cups every 3 months), since 1 cup weighs about 1 pound and you'll need 1/0.08 = 12.5 lbs of the fertilizer per year to achieve 1 pound net of Nitrogen per year. For the extra potash: IF you are already supplying 1 lb of potash/year as in the above example, you need an additional 1/2 lb per year. Two example ways to get this would be:
7 pounds of wood ash (N-P-K about 0-0-5) per plant per year, or
2.25 pounds of Sul-Po-Mag (N-P-K = 0-0-22) per plant per year.

Take it easy with the Sul-Po-Mag. It is a dense material -- weigh it before you use it and don't apply more 3/4 pounds at a time. You can buy it cheaply (50 lbs for $20) at an agricultural supply store. Nurseries on the other hand often sell it at excessive prices.

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Back in business at plantsthatproduce.com

lorax

Welcome aboard - what they said!

Dean W.

Welcome to the forum.

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MediaHound

Welcome!
In addition, this link should be useful:
Info:Fertilizer - Bananas Wiki

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Apologies in advance if I am slow to reply to your PM. I suggest posting in the forums for support if you need something urgent.

magicgreen

Larry Welcome to the Worlds best banana forum.
Larry I use all the above and anything else I think might be good!

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(Started growing bananas July 2007)
(Zone 6)