jbclem

I know it's a year later, but I'm curious to know how the "not namwah" fared after a winter of cold and rain. I'm in S. Calif, a 9b zone where it gets down to 24-28F a few times each winter. I've had bad luck with in ground bananas, the few I've tried that way sometimes survive the winter (with 3 layers of agribon 19 and plastic keeping the ground dry) only to die in the spring from some kind of rot.

I've been bringing my container bananas indoor once the weather gets down below 30-32F at night, and that way they survive. So I'm really interested to know about your winter banana survivals. How cold does it get where you live, and for how long(each night)?

John
Topanga, Ca 90290

Raja Puri (19gal laundry basket) and California Gold (15 gal container).

meizzwang

It can get down to 27F in the winter where I'm located, but the last time it was that cold was about 10 years ago. Normally, we see between 29-32F as the lows at night. However, these lows typically only last for a few hours at night, and it always warms up beyond freezing during the day. What's even more damaging is prolonged cold, wet days/nights. Last year, we had light frost for maybe 1-2 days, and that didn't cause any leaf damage. It was the days were it was in the 40's at night and high 50's during the day for weeks on end with lots of rain that really damaged the plants.

In contrast, we had a lot of cool, dry days this december, and temps. were about identical to last year. Zero of the bananas showed cold damage to the leaves until it started raining hard in January. Rajapuri is definitely slightly more cold tolerant compared to american goldfinger fHIA-1. Ice Cream also has a high level of cold tolerance compared to other cold tolerant varieties.
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Here's the complete report of "not namwah" which turned out to be raja puri (ID is with 100% certainty): rajapuri outdoors in Northern California (grow report)

Kanana

Also curious if those bananas actually survived last year and if the fruit was edible or not.

Kanana

link doesn't work.

venturabananas

I'm a little surprised by this and agree with what Mike (meizzwang) said. I'd suspect the wet cold roots/corm is the problem. Planting on a mound like they do with avocados, in a spot with full sun all day in winter might be enough to turn things around. Or even a very large pot (minimum 25 gallons) placed on soil and allowing the plants to root through the pot into the soil. That would guarantee you could keep the corm and some of the roots pretty dry during the cold rainy season. With the almost complete lack of rain this year, in-ground might have been OK!

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jbclem

I'm also surprised by my bad luck, especially after reading about meizzwang's groove that survives long spells of cold wet weather. It's warmer down here (Los Angeles area) during the daytime although nights at my 1200 ft altitude are cool enough (lots of 35F to 45F, over 1000 chill hours), this winter being an exception so far. And we rarely get long spells of continuous cold wet weather

My last failure was an Orinoco in ground, bundled up for a brief cold spell(26-28F), the leaves were burnt and then it seemed to get rot in the upper portion and I watched the rot work it's way down the stem as I tried to cut the stem off below it...eventually it got to the corm.

Letting a banana plant root though the bottom of a container sounds intriguing, but seeing the way rot can travel, I'm not sure I would want to chance it. And on real cold nights I'm not sure the plastic would protect the roots from 24-26F temperatures.

Only one rainstorm so far this winter, but 4" of rain at my house. If only that would happen in the warm summers we have here (daytime 85-95F most of the time).

meizzwang, thanks for the report on your weather conditions. Strangely enough, it looks like your zone is more conducive to growing bananas than mine. I think that perhaps once the plant/mat is large and old enough it can withstand the wet weather a little better. I'll keep trying to test that theory.