asacomm

Hi all,

The lowest temperature in these days has been in the vicinity of 55F or so
and all other bananas have already moved, but Raja Puri still does not move
AT ALL.

So I cut the top of its pseudostem to examine if the center rolled leaf is
dead rotten. But as you can see from the picture, it is not considered that
it is damaged or dead. At this time of the season, at least a few new leaves
should be developed.

Your comments are anticipated.

Stan

bigdog

Yeah, sounds like what I experienced last year, at least similar. The center leaf may appear to be healthy when in fact it is not. Occasionally, there will be a rotten spot below the spot that looks healthy. This will cause the growing point to either rot further on down the pseudostem, or to bust out of the side (mine rotted all the way down to the corm). I'd give it a few days, and if you don't see any action, start cutting down a few inches at a time. Looking at your pic again, I do see a small black spot in the very center. Could get bigger as you go down.

AnnaJW

After the freaky winter we had here, I'm giving the plants a chance to come back. I've had several that looked liked yours that disappeared; then either came back, or produced pups. If you can wait, see what happens. These plants can be amazing when they come out of a "shock" situation.

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asacomm

Hi bigdog,

Your obsevation on my pics was sharp and correct.
I cut down little by little and then at last found the pleace where the center
rolled young leaf is rotten, and cutting down to the basement the situation
was worse than the upper portion.
You can see from the pic that the stem is still green and solid and nobody
would suspect something terrible was happening inside the stem.
I have learned that Raja Puri is a rather difficult and cold sensitive species
than is told publically.

Stan

MediaHound

Thats some serious detective work, Frank, well done.

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mrbungalow

Do you have a Japanese samurai-sword, Stan? That's a very fine cut!

Was it rotten all the way down, or do you think you can save a small portion of the mother-stem? This is intersting, because I will be trying Rajapuri outside this winter too.

Erlend

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asacomm

Hi Erlend,

At last I lost 2 of two Raja Puris this winter entirely with the same phono-
menon that means the pseudostem looked quite healthy; green and solid but
the center rolled young leaf was dead rotten, and more over the fact that
made it more complicated was that on the top of the stem the rolled center
leaf was seemed to be alive and green by which fact nobody suspected
that inside of the stem the growing point was dead. But it had never moved
at all and it was dead.
As luckily they bore suckers, I will challenge again in the coming winter.

Stan

asacomm

Hi Erlend,

I am here again to answer you what you asked me.

Yes it was rotten all the way down to the basement of the stem and there
was no portion of the center leaf that seemed to be alive.

I still don't understand why the center was damaged while the stem was not
damaged at all. This could be a particular inclination of this species of Raja
Puri.

Stan

bigdog

I have had the same problem with Raja Puri, so I suspected it might be the problem. Lucky guess, really! I don't leave mine out for the winter like you did though, because even with protection like you had, it would be useless in my climate. I can save Musa basjoo and M. sikkimensis pseudostems with protection, but that's about it. M. cheesmani did that to me this last winter. When uncovered, the pseudostem looked firm and healthy, but the center leaf had rotted to the corm. I haven't tried protection like that with M. yunnanensis yet though, because I just thought that the pseudostems were too thin to bother with. Seeing as how cold-hardy it is turning out to be though, I may give it a shot this next winter!

Anyway, the Raja Puri that rotted out on me was just stored under the house for the winter. I don't think it did it to me this year though, but I'm not sure yet. I managed to save one green leaf, so I'm hesitant to cut the pseudostem down yet to check the center leaf. After years of doing this though, if there aren't any leaves to save I usually cut down until I find green in the middle. I don't have any experience with leaving Raja Puri in the ground over the winter, but I know of some in zone 8a that do and it comes back for them. So while the pseudostem may not hold up well to cold weather, the corm does fairly.

Jane

I had all my bananas in the house this winter as they were still small. I kept them in a well lighted cool room and give them small amounts of water. They all did ok, as they did not die. After bringing them out this spring all started growing pretty quickly except for one. It was not a Raja Puri. After reading this post I started wondering about it. Well yesterday afternoon before I could investigate it broke in half. I’m guessing the wind did it. When I cut the broken top off I found that the new emerging leaf had started to rot and weakened the stem. I cut it till all I saw was green. Well as of this morning it has already started to grow. I sure hope I caught it in time and it keeps growing.