Gabe15

The blue skin is common, but not a sure thing as it can vary with conditions, it should not be used for ID alone. I have seen bonafide 'Ice Cream' before that are waxy, but not blue like normal.

The plant we are trying to ID above is a little difficult to pinpoint for a few reasons:
1. We are presented with only a few photos which do not clearly demonstrate the best diagnostic traits (in this case, a female bud, and the entire developing bunch with male bud attached would be very useful). As a banana inflorescence develops, it changes, and some very important traits need to be observed at different times, and things like male bud and fruit (shape, size, color, waxiness etc...) will change on the same plant over time as it develops.
2. 'Namwah' and 'Ice Cream' are rather similar morphologically, and due to the above reasons, it is difficult to tell which it is from these photos.
3. The colors of the male bud can be useful to tell these plants apart, but you can never be sure if the colors you see on the computer screen are really representing the actual object as it appears or if these is some change, there are many factors along the way which can distort the colors.
4. There are always genotype x environment interactions which are influencing the phenotypic expression, so even identical clonal plants can often look rather different under different conditions.

That being said, I personally am leaning towards 'Namwah' given the photos we see, but that's not to definitively say I would not change my opinion if more photos were presented which showed something different.

The most significant points I see in this case are the male bud bract colors and the apex shape and degree of imbrication at this stage. Notice how Pisang Awak bananas tend to have a pinkish/reddish hue to the bract external face whereas 'Ice Cream' tends to be more purple. Also notice how when the male buds are younger (compare with the older male bud in the Quail photos above which show how much it can change over time), the 'Pisang Awak' buds are more pointed/sharp at the apex and more imbricated than the 'Ice Cream' buds at a roughly comparable stage (young).


Mark, if you can get more photos of the plants later of the whole developing inflorescence in multiple stages (female and male stages) it would make it more clear. There are some other traits which we cannot see right now which may help to ID it.

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

venturabananas

Thanks for the input Gabe. I will try to take more photos as development of the inflorescence progresses. The thing that might make it a challenge is that my neighbor tends to cut off the male bud very soon after fruits stop being formed.

Gabe, do you think there is any validity to the observations I made about differences between the fruits of Pisang Awak and Ney Mannan cultivars in the MGIS database? Specifically...

Peel thickness: Pisang Awak = thin (< 3 mm) vs Ney Mannan = thick (>3 mm)
Flavor: Pisang Awak = with apple overtones vs Ney Mannan = no apple flavor

Or are these differences based on too little data in that database?

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venturabananas

I never could get more photos of the progression of the inflorescence and specifically the male flowers because my neighbor cut off the bud after it stopped making female flowers.

That said, I am now certain that my neighbor's bananas are a Pisang Awak cultivar because they tasted identical to the dwarf Namwah fruits that Tony sent me. I need to talk to my neighbor more about how she feeds her banana plants because boy does she get the fruits big and plump -- so much so that it almost disguises the bottle nose of fruit unless you look carefully.

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Jose263

Ventura - did you find out about your neighbor's nana feeding schedule ?
Got nanas this year and want to plump them before winter weather arrives.

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Growing: Orinoco, Rajapuri, Dwarf Cav, SDC, TT, Dwarf Red, Dwarf Namwah, Tall Namwah (aka Ice Cream), Dwarf Brazilian, Veinte Cohol, California Gold, Double Mohai, NOT-Goldfinger, Gran Nain, Velutina

venturabananas

It turns out that she does nothing, literally, other than water them. The bunches on my neighbor's mat and the fruit on them seem to be getting progressively smaller. Not a big surprise without any fert or any thinning of the mat. She currently has 5-6 bunches hanging on one mat.

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