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Tani leaf



These wild bananas grow to over 5 meters which makes breeding more difficult but by reducing the root zone aka growing in pots we reduce our average height to about 2.7 meters and if the root zone is done with the proper size it has the added benefit of shortening the vegetative phase. If the size is too small it'll lengthen the vegetative phase. The fruiting phase is about 5 months for us and if anyone is wondering, the fruit tastes much better than blue java or nam wa.

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AaronTT

One way to reduce height is to completely cut down the stalk to 3 feet or so once it's gained some decent height. I have a tall braz. that flowered at around 7 feet that I did that to. Sure it sets it back a bit, but not much. As long as the plant has at least 6+ leaves to grow out before flowering after cutting, your good. I think the bunch size will be larger than restricting its roots, but I could be wrong.

PR-Giants

This is similar to a horizontal cut but it's a vertical cut and instead of setting the plant back a bit it shortens the vegetative phase but not nearly as short as reducing the root zone does.

It works well if you have a short growing season.

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AaronTT

Thats very interesting, thank you for showing me that.

I didn't know you could shorten its vegetative growth, as I always thought bananas had a set number of leaves that have to emerge before flowering. How does that work by reducing its root zone?

PR-Giants

Yeah, you have to be careful about what you believe when reading posts on this forum and those leaf counting people are nuts.

There's a lot of misinformation on this forum, even about some of the basic stuff, but as members gain experience they should find it easier to spot the nonsense.

Common knowledge is information that all members should know.

Common sense is the ability to understand and use common knowledge.

Here's a simple question that can easily be proven using common knowledge.

Can a banana plant actively grow forever without ever flowering?

One answer can be proven to be true while the other answer can only be believed.

Common knowledge is plentiful - Common sense is rare

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PR-Giants

Here's an example of what happens if we completely cut down the stalk to 3 feet.

In a few weeks the plant regains most of it's height back but loses the strength to support a normal size bunch.

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PR-Giants

If the leaf counting people took the time to look at a banana plant closely they would notice that there are four main parts, the growing point, leaves, cortex, and central cylinder. The growing point is where the leaves are produced during the vegetative phase and the flower during the fruiting phase. When looking at the other three parts what stands out most is their connection with the growing point. The leaves have no direct connection and are only connected to the cortex. The cortex has a slight connection to the growing point while the central cylinder has a massive connection.

Using just that observation the central cylinder is most likely to have the dominant influence of the three on what the growing point does.

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sirdoofus

Interesting!

I am curious about the process. Do you just make a vertical cut from the top of the p-stem (through the leaves too) or do you start somewhere below the leaves and essentially just make a through and through slit down the p-stem? How far above the soil line do you stop the cut?

What about timing? I.e. could I do that when I pull/uncover my plants from winter storage or should I wait....or, would it be better to do it at some point in summer and hope for an early flowering the following spring...or would it work at all with plants that must go dormant over the winter?

And from a percentage standpoint, how much shorter might this make the vegetative phase?

Any other questions I should ask

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PR-Giants

Far enough so you don't have to dig a hole for the bunch.

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PR-Giants

Timing is a judgement call based on the approaching winter, this plant needs about 1.5 months for the fruit to fill. If there's enough time for the banana to flower and fill naturally then cutting is unnecessary.

I ship these plants to clients near the US - Canadian border that want to plant and harvest bananas in one summer, so short fruiting cycle bananas work best.

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sirdoofus

OK, so I am a bit confused (happens regularly). The plants you ship to the northern US border aren't necessarily cut vertically, as the pics as I see them would suggest?

And the plants in the pics I am assuming are shipped as pictured and it sounds like you are suggesting they don't necessarily need to be manipulated (i.e.vertically cut) in order to flower and fruit in one season...as long as there is enough time; which of course makes sense but it surprises me there would be enough time on the North Dakota/Saskatchewan border, for example.

Do your clients in the north regularly find they have enough time to get one of your plants to flower and fruit in a single season? If so, do you know what, if any manipulation they might be doing to get that to happen? Do they tend to grow in the ground or in containers?

If you were going to cut one of those pictured plants vertically, when would you do that? There clearly isn't enough height on that plant as pictured to keep the bunch off the ground, so if you were doing it, when would you cut it? And I am assuming you try to save as many leaves as possible when making a vertical cut?

Maybe I would just be better off root pruning the plants?

Sorry so many questions, but I am very interested in the possibility of shortening the overall cycle on in-ground plants and just maybe getting something to fruit. If you have a resource(s) with this info you can point me towards, I will stop bothering you

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bigdog

What size pot for balbisiana?

Bananaman88

Also, in cutting the pseudostem to 3', isn't one taking a chance of accidentally cutting through the bud and ruining any chance of fruiting for that season on that particular stem?

Let's say the overall height was a 6' of clear "trunk" and the grower cuts the pstem to 3' but, unbeknownst to him/her, the bud was already at the 5' point inside the pstem and about to emerge. They just ruined the possibility of getting that pstem to fruit, correct? Seems to me one would have to weight the advantages and disadvantages of doing this and also have some idea how close their plant might be to flowering before performing this procedure.

PR-Giants

Understanding the basics of shooting is probably helpful. Shooting is when the growing point leaves the underground stem and travels through the above ground stem.

As the growing point travels higher and gets closer to the top there's probably a size difference in the length of the leaf blades and a time difference between each new precursory appendage appearing.

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PR-Giants

If anyone has difficulty understanding how a banana plant can live forever it comes down to understanding the differences between the vegetative phase and the fruiting phase.

The fruiting phase is one directional, meaning once the plant begins the fruiting phase it is continuously moving closer to the end of it.

The vegetative phase is two directional, meaning it can move closer to the start of the fruiting phase and also move further away. This allows a grower to manipulate the plant to stay in the vegetative phase for perpetuity, which is useful for macropropagation purposes.

Based upon my research I believe the transition from the vegetative phase to the fruiting phase is triggered by the proper combination of the volume of the central cylinder and the size of it's connection to the growing point. The transition from leaf production to the beginning of floral tissue forming starts when the size of both the central cylinder and the connection are adequate.

There are many examples on this forum of a large central cylinder that has a small connection to the growing point or a small central cylinder that has a large connection to the growing point not being near flowering and obviously a small central cylinder that has a small connection to the growing point isn't near flowering either.

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PR-Giants

Most people don't plan to fail, they fail to plan.

It seems that you're taking something simple and easy and making it more complicated than it needs to be.

Plantain farmers here start by figuring out when they want to harvest and then subtract the days it takes the plant to complete the vegetative and fruiting phases. This let's farmers know when to plant.

Once northern growers learn to plan they'll probably buy planting material that's at the proper stage of maturity for same season harvest.

Removing most of the above ground stem is done just to reduce shipping cost.

This might be a more simple way of understanding this. Let's say you have a banana in a pot on the back porch that is going to flower tomorrow and you move it to the front porch at midnight. Now it will flower at it's new location in less than 24 hours because of it's stage of maturity when it was moved there.

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PR-Giants

This is an easy one to plan for.

If you start with a plant that's 2 months from blooming and add 3 weeks to grow back the parts that were removed for shipping, package delivery to harvest would be under 4 months and the first couple weeks can be done indoors which would reduce the outdoor time to about 3 months.

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PR-Giants

It doesn't get much easier than a Variegated Florida Cube.

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blownz281

Post #17- wow that one is awesome looking and in perfect shape!