Pancrazio

My dwarf namwah is pushing out deformed leaves, and things get worse as time goes by.
I don't live in a banana growing zone and i'm pretty scrupulous in adding bananas to my collection (and however i haven't added anything in last two years) so i'm going to exclude that this is due tp any any pest/virus.

This just leaves nutritional deficiencies.
I have bee using (sparingly, i admit) a 16-8-24 mix personally made using ammonium nitrate, superphospate, sulphate of potash in correct amounts. My plant grow a a slight alkaline soil (i'm assuming 7,5 ph, surely less than 8, but it reacts with acids, so i guess there's some carbonate there).

What i should do? Last week i treated with 20 gr (0,7 ounces) of a complete microelements fertilizer but so far no improvements. Should i wait more? What do you guys think?

Of course i did take a couple of pics of my plant to help troubleshooting.
Keep in mind that on higher leaves you don't see wind damage, that's how they emerged from pseudostem.

http://i.imgur.com/e1DX1VC.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/PyTASVE.jpg

Quality of the pic isn't excellent of people need something better i'm gonna take new pics.

Also, pup leaves are normal: so i think the element i'm lacking is pretty mobile in the plant.

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Akula

Anybody know what the issue might be with the banana plants in the above photos provided by Pancrazio? One of my larger namwas is showing the same deformed leaves.

Thanks for any help or advice!

edwmax

Likely heavy application of nitrogen.

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Island Brah

Hi Pancrazio,

How much of the 16-8–24 did u use in the application and how often? Is it a granular fertilizer?

What was the name of the microelement fert?

Approx how tall are the plants with about how many pups per?

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Tytaylor77

I would also say a little too much N. Could also be needing a little calcium. Or it could be due to heavy rain! Rain will cause mine to jump like that. Especially in springtime. Either way it’s not a big deal. As long as you have fast growth it will fix itself. If you are having slow growth I would add some calcium.

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Akula

Thanks for the replies.

Over fertilization makes sense. The leaves are green, no yellow, and no brown and coming out fast with fifteen leaves produced this season so far. No caterpillar hanging out inside the pstem either. I had that happen last year so know what it looks like.

I doubled the normal monthly application rate because I had three pstems growing in the spot after the winter but the biggest was too close to flowering and didn't successfully push out. Cut it back and found a flower inside. I separated the medium size pstem from the big one and it also failed leaving me with the smallest of the three to gorge on the fertilizer. The little dude has shot up from slightly below four feet to nine feet plus but does have some screwed up leaves as a side effect.

I'll delay the next application until the leaves return to normal.

Thanks!