ryan

here's my friend's picture of a wholly albino musa ae ae, which is interesting as this one has grown to a substantial size, albeiot zapping its mother's energy entirely in the process...

jeffreyp

i think she should hit the plant with some high nitrogen fertilizer

momoese

Wow, I have never seen one grow that tall before and it looks healthy too. Wierd!

STEELVIPER

wouldn't the sun burn it to a crisp?

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MediaHound

Next thing you know, it'll glow in the dark.

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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.

tlturbo

I never could get a white one over about 2 ft tall. And yes, it burns quite easily. Maybe in a bright greenhouse with no sun, humidity and lots of food???

Terry

ryan

if u all look closer the lower leaves are all burnt. whoops. haha.

but cool picture eh...

STEELVIPER

Yeah it is a very cool Plant. But i agree, man it sure does look like it could glow!

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wim

As the plant is unable to make it sown sugars through photosynthesis, how can it survive once the mother plant is gone ? I know one can grow chlorophyll-less plants in a TC-environment (the medium contains all the necessary sugars).

How could we make this plant survive ? Pouring sugary water at its roots ? I'm sure ants and fungi will love it, but would it benefit the plant? What sugars would be needed, concentration, ... ?

I think that if you can't trigger the plant to start making its own chlorophyll, it is doomed. :2190:

Jeff, you think a nitrogen shot will help. Do you have experience ?

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With kind regards
Wim

Christian Rieger

Ryan,

Thanks for the photo. There might be some others at the large research libraries, like Columbia or The Library of Congress, but aside from that, have you seen any other photos? Do you guys have photos from when it was younger? Is the "parent" all green or variegated? Are the other plants to it's right green or variegated? It is hard to tell with the glare on the leaves

This plant is one of the master-works of nature's engineering.

You seem to imply that the "parent" had not yielded bananas. If so, then the albino feeding off the parent kept it from producing. Here is something else to consider, maybe the "parent" is not genetically coded to produce bananas, but the albino instead. It could be that the stalks in the colony have different jobs, in other words, they are specialists.

Perhaps the foremost specialty is that the green plants grow tall to give protection to the variegated from the continuous direct rays of the sun. Those in turn protect the albino. The albino might be coded to do something else beside be albino. I hope you guys get some bananas from this so we can all see pictures.

Your friend's albino is not just a rare occurrence in itself, but the fact that he let it grow is more amazing still, because people usually cut it down believing it could not live independently of other banana plants. And they are probably right. And since their intention is toward commercial production, they had no interest in letting them live. (Unless there is a very strong colony, it would not seem an albino could give birth to another albino.) Since no one lets them grow to maturity, we can all learn from what you two are doing.

Judging by the girth of the nearby stems, I would say the soil is weak. The girth also indicates that if they had bananas, they would need support to stay up. Same with the albino. So you and he will have to give extra attention in caring for it.

The major thing is to protect it from the wind. I have had Orinoco stems grow to 15 feet and supported by an open-ended, inverted "V" made of 2 by 4s. The support has to be about 2/3s of the way up the stem because this is where most of the stress is when the bananas come out -- not half way up. People who put supports half way up find the plant falls over from wind and weight.

Additionally, putting the support against the stem is not enough. If the wind comes from the direction the plant is leaning into and there is no support on the other side, it can fall "backwards." This is very disappointing when after nine months to a year off waiting for a first harvest they fall over before they are ready. To prevent this from happening, we wrap ½ inch rope twice around the stalk and tie it to the top of the inverted "V." That keeps it from falling backward. But with this fella, I would be more supportive, so to speak.

If I were you, I would support the parent and the offspring by sinking six 2 x 4s in the ground in a rectangular pattern far enough from the stalks so as not to do the dense root structure too much harm. I would stabilize these with cross bars half way up and at the top. The height of the structure should be at least 2/3s of the way up the tallest stalk. I would then tie ropes from the wooden structure to 2/3s and about half way up the pants from three different directions, almost at equal angles. This will maximize the stability due to wind and weight. The plants should keep their natural tilt.

As a friend of mine once said as regards to growing banana plants: the best food for a banana is another banana. This appears particularly so for the albino your friend has. It does not seem that it will feed from its neighbors to the right in the photo. There is no direct contact. If this is so, it could be that it will stop growing when the parent dies. Giving it fertilizers may not do any good since it apparently cannot synthesize its own food.

The clue as to how to feed it comes from the method to grow giant pumpkins, feed it intravenously. Fluids would have to be extracted from its related plants and then drip-pumped into the albino. This is only a contingency plan and only if your are interested in seeing what happens when the plant lives out its cycle.

No one has cared about doing any of this because it was not going to be of commercial value. If there is any information around, I suspect it is squirreled away in a draw, trunk or library of someone descended from someone who experimented with it in the 1940s and 50s.

I have seen naturally growing colonies of bananas with diameters of 10 to 15 feet. These were in rain forests and in flat lands with a marl type soil. The colonies die out, probably from exhausting the soil. If given manures, I suspect they could get bigger. The albino banana would probably thrive in a properly nurtured colony because it would have a strong, healthy parent to feed it and relatives to protect it. Probably several albinos could grow in such a colony.

Thanks again for the photo.

D.O. Christian Rieger

tlturbo

Christian,

Not sure if this answers any of your questions, but about 2 years ago, I had a mother Ae-Ae produce fruit and then we moved. I put the corm with the cut off pseudostem and about 4 pups in a large pot. Over the next 6 months, it produced around 14 pups. As a couple would get big enough, I'd cut them off and pot them up then sell when larger. In the course of the, I got about 5 all white (like in TOTALLY white except for a very thin red edge) pups mixed in with the regular. Never got an all green one. I got a couple white ones up about 2 feet while still attached. It appeared it was just an occasional random pup and they appeared all around the corm. I went away for a week and the summer rains filled the pot and the corm eventually stopped prodicing pups and then rotted. Jarred took some pictures of the corm in the pot with lots of pups including a couple white ones - it is in my photo gallery.

Terry

wim

Christian ,
Feeding plants intravenously ... can you tell how this is exactly done ?

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With kind regards
Wim

ryan

wow christian, that's a really thoughful reply. i didnt know that a wayward albino just left to grow wold get that kind of interest! i'll go find out more details from my friend and update everyone on its history, and its progress...

geez, this really is a useful forum with great members who contribute their extensive knowledge!

momoese

I think he's talking about feeding off the mother plant until she dies?

ryan

Hi Ryan,

Could you send him my reply as follows:
Dear Christian,
Thank you for the detailed email - we find this very informative.
Actually, there were 3 albino banana babies from 3 different mother variegated banana plants at the same time. Pictures are available on this thread, including the bunch of recently-harvested variegated bananas.

The first one died when it was about 10 cm tall, trampled by my Pomeranians. The mother plant for this first one had 4-5 small variegated babies. The mother plant never flowered, as it was transplanted twice in a year.

The second one died when it was about 30 cm tall, broken by my dogs when they fought. This albino had alot of blackness on its trunk, and I had to remove the sheaths of the older leaves (where the blackness is). That is why the trunk was pretty thin. The mother plant for this second one has 2 babies that grew up quite fast. The mother plant did not flower either - it was actually the child of another mother plant that did flower at my place.

The third one is, thankfully, still alive as in the photo. It is about a metre tall now. The mother plant just finished flowering and bore the biggest bunch of bananas so far (among 3 that flowered and bore fruit). This albino is the first baby. There is another baby forming, but I can't tell right now if it is variegated. Hopefully, this baby is variegated, and can take over feeding the albino as the mother plant will be dying soon.

As for the danger of the wind, it is not so windy here, and the banana plants are in the middle of the garden, surrounded by other large plants and a trellis. My dogs are much more dangerous to smaller plants. I feed the bananas quite regularly with bone meal.

Regards
Eric Leong

Christian Rieger

Ryan and Eric,

I would have gotten back to you sooner, but Patagonia is not set up for Wi-Fi.

There were supposed to be pictures with the last post? I did not find any. They could be somewhere I missed?

As I said in the previous post, since most banana growers kill an albino because it has no chlorophyl, it is rare that one gets so tall. I was trying to grow one once at the garden in Key West, but a liquid propane gas man killed the Hawaiian Ae-ae with his heavy hose. Some people do not care about other people’s property.

In the future when you post here I might ask that seem painfully obvious to you or anyone else here. I may know what I think is the answer, but you two may have one that is better or more accurate. Since I have an idea how to bring an albino to full cycle, I want to see if you guys are going along the same track. I am not going to presume answers, that is no way to learn. Then I will tell you what I think.

If the albino bears bananas you will want to support it anyway, no matter how well protected from the wind. At this point, no one knows how strong it is. In a colony it probably would not need support, but standing almost alone, it is wise to do so. And you never know who will lean against it and break it. Then your time and effort will go down the tubes.

By way of example, two visitors to my garden in Key West used a young papaya plant as a pole to pull themselves up a high step. One guy weighed about 280 pounds; broke it and six months of growing was wiped out. It takes only a second for something irreversible to happen. An old insurance adage tells us: It is better to have insurance and not need it, than to need it and not have it. When you give it support, you cannot go wrong.

The first questions: Why does he feed them bone meal? What is the source of the bone meal? What is the brand? The reason for this question is not all brands are the same. Some brands mess around with it by adding stuff, as in a health food store. A few brands are just pulverized bone meal. Others add chemicals to it you do not need, and the price pops.. Same with this.

There is another fertilizer in his yard that I have suspected would help produce a variegated banana. Because it is right in front of his nose, he may not see it, but you might. Sometimes the obvious eludes us. Do you have any idea what that might be? It can also cause plants that are not variegated to become variegated.

If you cannot venture a guess by your next post, I will tell you what it is and why I think it would help do the trick. I was going to suggest it as a fertilizer in the long-winded post, but I thought it not the right thing to say here.

How did your friend happen upon three variegated when it is hard enough simply to obtain one?


I presume you are not in south Florida, because you would have said something about cold weather stunting or killing the plants.

Christian Rieger

Christian Rieger

Terry,

Thanks for the photos. Really nice. You must have been very surprised, and delighted, when that happened.

It is amazing that so many albinos would actually spring out from one source. I have an idea that might help us with why that multiple phenomenon happened. But I will wait till we hear back from Ryan and Eric about the plants there. Then I can present the pieces puzzle I have as to why the Ae-ae does what it does and how we might encourage it do it again and more so.

Thanks,

Christian Rieger

ryan

hey christian, some more photos here....

Christian Rieger

Ryan and Eric,

Thanks for the four photos. You guys should be very excited. So many variegated ones and particulalry so many albinos at the same time is exceptional. From your friend’s photos, we all know that an albino pup is just as healthy and robust as any standard green one. The impression writers have given is it is a weak mutation. Nothing weak about the one in the second photo. This alone indicates it is not a freak of nature, a retard or mistake.

The last photo gives no doubt it is really albino, even though a little red is down the center of the leaf. It is almost like red corpuscles. Probably a red carotene. If it had bananas, what color would you think they would be? Red? White? Silver? My first inclination years ago was red. Wouldn’t it be amazing if they were white with slight red ribbing?

If I were you, I would give all the albinos manure tea every day. Get several large, 5 gallon white plastic buckets. Puncture about 15 screw-driver size holes in the bottom. You can do this more easily by heating the tip of a screw driver over the gas flames of a stove, or resting on electric coils. Wear heavy gloves when you handle the hot screw drive, just in case.

Fill the punctured bucket about half way with chicken manure. Put the bucket next to the plant and fill to the top with water twice a day. It will drain out slowly and drip-feed the plant. When it gets tall, the leaves may burn away. If I were you guys, I would still try to protect them with shade cloth. If leaves are there, there has got to be a reason, even if there is no chlorophyl. I have found without equivocation, that God and nature know what they are doing.

You guys should find it informative that an albino can get to the heights it does and while not being able to manufacture its own food. However, maybe it does, but in a different way? Do you think it grows faster than the parent shrinks?

There are people who kill an albino because it is not the same as the others.

Cruel, cruel world. Shame on them.

But us . . . we here are all about to learn something.

D. O. Christian Rieger

Christian Rieger

OK, you two. I will answer my own questions.

The fertilizer you have in the yard is dog. They will raise their legs to trees and stumps of all sizes. When I was a kid, I noticed that a few of the plants they did this to became variegated. There is something in dog urine that can change a plant. Not many, but a few.

One photo shows an exceptional number of albinos growing in a pot. This rarity occurred not only because an albino feeds on rotting material. Not rotted, rotting. Throw five or six pounds of rotting hamburger on top of the root system of a variegated, cover it with dirt and the plant grows with exceptional speed and has a higher probability of producing albino offspring.

It is highly likely that a plant like this helped human survival when the mega-volcano blew its lid 70,000 thousands years ago.

Below is an explanation I give to people when asked about the uniqueness and potential importance of the Hawaiian Ae-AE.

Some of this will be repetition to you, but read on.

CR

A Possible Technique for Creating Food Crops to Grow in Short-season and Low-light Conditions by
Studying the Gene Characteristics of the Hawaiian Ae-ae Banana.

The Hawaiian Ae-ae Banana has characteristics locked into its genes which if they could be transferred to other plants, could revolutionize agriculture.

The Hawaiian Ae-ae Banana is not a typical banana plant. Its characteristics set it apart from perhaps all other plants.

Firstly, its leaves are variegated. But that is not important; there are other bananas and other species in the plant kingdom that have that characteristic. Secondly, it also has plants with leaves that are solid green, and thirdly, it has plants that are albino, virtually no chlorophyll. This occurs all in the same colony.

Because of its uniqueness, the variegated is prized as a collector’s item and that plant alone brings the seller anywhere from $125 to $425. That is also not important to this presentation.

Because of its monetary value, scientists have tried to clone the variegated version. They have failed. Most of the time they get green plants and only occasionally get a variegated one. As far as I know, they have not tried to clone a white one. Maybe that is where they have gone wrong.

(Attached are photos of the Hawaiian Ae-ae Variegated Banana in its different forms. Brief explanations of each photo appear below.)

Holy Plant of the Hawaiians
This odd plant was a holy plant to the Hawaiians and only the king could eat its fruit. A severe penalty was reserved for transgressors. Apparently, it had been a holy plant from time immemorial, or shortly before.

At this point I would like to interject one of my rules of thumb: Responsible religions do not do stupid things. Therefore, I like to think this holy plant had to be around for some reason.

Many high priests in the ancient religions had psychic powers. And like the Amerindian Medicine Men, they could see the future. I believe the Pacific-island priests did likewise, and saw some value to it beyond its unique coloration.

Though they have nothing to gain from it, the best of humanity will do things for the future. Such is the tradition of priests of every ilk. I think the Hawaiian’s guardianship of this plant is an example. The plant comes to us from ages past, and we can always learn from the past.

Growth Characteristics
In their natural state, bananas grow in “colonies.” When the Hawaiian Ae-ae plant grows in a colony the most common plants are the green ones which are taller than the other two.

The variegated ones need some shade to protect the white part of the leaves from burning in the sun. They find this is the shade of the tall green ones. The albino appears less frequently than the other two, and needs a great deal of shade to keep its leaves from burning. This it finds under the leaves of the other two types.


From what I understand, commercial growers usually cut down white because they believe it can not survive without chlorophyll. They think the white plant is a mutation resulting from genes gone amuck. Perhaps it is not a mutation, but a message.

From what I can find out, science treats the three plants almost as if they are three different varieties. If one views the banana in terms of commercial production, then this makes sense.

However, there is an alternative: all three are expressions of one plant. My guess is the white one feeds mostly from the chlorophyll production of the other two. Though there may be other ways to feed it.

Why is this important?
The two potentially useful attributes the white banana has is it grows without chlorophyll, and it grows in partial and/or low light. The usefulness of plants that grow in low light can be seen in the following historical scenario. (A documentary video accompanies this letter in the package.)

72,000 thousand years ago a mega-volcano blew up in Indonesia. Its dust cloud spread around the planet and blocked out the sun. Temperatures plummeted by up to 21 degrees at higher latitudes, according to Michael Rampino, a biologist and geologist at New YorkUniversity. Rampino has estimated three-quarters of the plant species in the Northern Hemisphere perished.

The human population before the explosion is said to have been three to five billion. 2,000 to 12,0000 survived. The human race came within a hair’s breadth of extinction. We were lucky.

The resulting caldera is 100 miles long and 30 miles wide. (One of these volcanoes, not quite as big, is in Yosemite Park in the western United States.) Imagine the noise and the earth quakes when it blew up. It would have put Krakatoa to shame. And the latter’s explosion was heard 3000 miles away and the tidal waves got up to 120 feet.

Where did the people survive after that explosion 72,000 years ago? How did they survive? Did they survive in pockets around the planet, or in a cluster in one place? What fluke left them alive? At what place, or places, were there sun, water and food enough for survival?

When this happens again, and scientists say we are overdue, it will be necessary to have food-providing plants able to grow in as many places as possible — particularly in low light created by the dust cloud.

The white banana might be able to grow in such conditions without accompanying green ones. More importantly, plants that have acquired some of the gene characteristics of the Albino Ae-ae could also grow in low-light conditions.

If all food plants had varieties with ability to grow in dim light, then more of the human race has a chance of surviving the next mega-blast — or mega something.

The gene that gives the white banana the ability to grow without chlorophyll could contain the answer to making other plants be more flexible in their ability to grow in low light conditions. It could be this that can give humanity genetically engineered plants to feed the many people that need food in our generation and the few people alive after a natural catastrophe in the future.

D. O. C. R.