harveyc

I've been asked a few times on how I prepare bananas for shipping, so I put together this video today while shipping a Belle and some unknown banana plant (referred to as "busy bee banana" in 2008) to Tony ("sunfish").

This box weighed right at 7 pounds and cost $11.14 to ship via Priority Mail, including delivery confirmation (postage is discounted slightly and delivery confirmation is free when postage is purchased online at USPS.com or at PayPal). I use a lot of flat rate boxes for other purposes but they're generally not the best choice unless just shipping a large corm without any pseudostem.



Maybe Tony can post a photo or two about the condition of the box upon arrival in about two days.

I hope this helps if you've been looking for some shipping tips. Please feel free to as questions.

Best wishes,

Harvey

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Patty in Wisc

Thanks Harvey. I hope you do same when you ship my AE AE

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Patty in Wisc has sadly passed away 9/05/11. We will miss you Patty.

harveyc

Patty, I can send you your Ae Ae at any time by e-mail!

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MediaHound

Awesome Harvey, thanks for sharing. Thread stuck.

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MediaHound

I made a quick-n-dirty video of packaging corms in November of '07 also, on topic so here goes:

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mike

Wow I suck at that. With these videos I should be better next time. Thanks guys.

Lagniappe

Dude! You're a great shipper!

CookieCows

Really appreciate the time spent filming the packing techniques!

Thanks a

Deb

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bencelest

Harvey:
I've got the idea from you Via Tony from San Diego and I was able to ship a large banana plant but I had to improvise a bit. I shipped the banana before I saw your vid.
First off, I wrapped the roots with sphagnum moss after I soaked it in az41 mixture and squeezed all the water out. I also soaked the roots with AZ41 mixture for 10 minutes to get rid of fungus and harmful bacteria. Before I soaked the roots, I spray them in full force of the water hose so no soil clung to the roots. I also almost double the length of the box and double the diameter of the box because the pup is much larger than what you had shown on the vid.
I did not want to cut the leaves so I left most of it intact. I wrapped the leaves with newspaper and filled the void with a lot of folded newspapers. Shipping cost was $18.75 FedEx ground 5 day shipment.
But from now on I think am going to stay with the size like yours because it took a lot lot of my time wrapping that big CG pup.

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Patty in Wisc

Dumb question: Obviously there are no dormant plants now so I would think it would be a bad thing to take all soil off a live plant & ship it dry - esp with leaves on it. Does this put it immediately dormant?
Bob (my hero) sent me 2 nanas with soil & leaves on & it got here just fine. Don't get me wrong...I know you know what you're doing, but it's hard to believe we can do this suddenly to a thriving plant & have it bounce back. It's how Mitchel sent my misi luki sword pup but it was cool then & it took awhile for it to wake up.
It just seems strange that needing lots of water to survive, they can travel for a week being bone dry in the midst of their growing season! It seems to me that a dry rootball/corm puts it to sleep - but then, how did Benny's get there healthy even though he left the leaves on?
I will say that in '06, someone sent me a corm of Williams with wet soil around it (in plastic) & it died soon after. I guess it was just TOO water logged.

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stumpy4700

I wish I would have seen this before I made an improvised container and wasted a whole roll of duc tape.I didn't know the USPS gave away those boxes.......Great vid's

bencelest

Patty:
This is my first time shipping a banana and noone told me what I should do. I just did it by instinct I guess or by common sense. To me it is not practical to leave the soil intact because of its size. Because of its weight adding the soil will cost me too much. I only charge the buyer $11 for postage (I was guessing at that time).And you are right it is a bad thing to remove all the soil.
But it is not alltogether dry. I soaked the roots first for 10 minutes with AZ41 mixture together with the sphagnum moss and then I squeeze all the water out but being a moss alot of water is still clung to the moss. Then I wrapped the roots with it and put 3 bags of clear plastics to make sure the water stay with the roots. Since it is sealed and there is no sunlight I think it will stay moist for the 5 day duration of travel.
Because of the temperature is warm and above 60 degrees in transit, the banana will not be dormant. I think it will continue to grow. And since I soaked the roots with AZ41 which kills those fungus in the roots, the roots will stay viable.
That's my input.
I'll find out when the buyer email me and tell me what happened.

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harveyc

Benny, I took the soil off of mine also, though I did notice during the filming of the video I missed a little on one plant. Priority Mail usually gets plants delivered in 1-3 days so I prefer it over FedEx 5-day. I would also be more concerned about damage to a really long box.

Patty, the plants don't go dormant with the soil removed and it doesn't seem to shock the plants by doing it this way. The plant slows way down when it's in a box and not exposed to sunlight and drying air and, if you have plenty of roots, it can take off right where it left off when it was dug up. It's best to not put such a plant in full sun right away, though, so I almost always pot them up and wait until they're re-rooted before planting in the ground.

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bencelest

Thanks for the reply right away Harvey. Yes I know it can be damaged but I tried my best to secure the box by tying around and over and taping all over that darn thing. Like I said it would be my first and last because of the time involved wrapping and tying that thing up. I will from now on sell a pup that will fit into a post office box.
Do you go to the post office for a priority mail? Would they accept a box that is twice as long and twice as big as their largest box giveaway? That's my mental problem. I deduce right away that they won't and also is it legal to ship a banana plant? That's my constant worry.
Someone email me if I have a dwarf Brazilian for sale.

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Patty in Wisc

quote from Benny;
"And you are right it is a bad thing to remove all the soil."
Benny, I never said it's a bad thing...I was just asking about it.
All 3 of us grow citrus & we could never ship them like this...meaning dry, bare roots. They would die for sure! Nanas must be pretty tough if they can handle this.
Thanks to you guys for your input. Let us know how the plants got there & how they do OK?

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Lagniappe

Think about scion wood, then put that thought toward banana corms (bulbs).
I dug up several Ice creams, ran an ebay auction for three days, gave some of the ones that didn't sell to members and friends, left the others on the outdoor dining table for a week in 95+ weather with no roots at all, planted those after a few weeks, and now have several nice plants after only a few weeks of their being planted.
Weird thing is, several members were looking for these and I had trouble giving them away :P

Lagniappe

My "Florida" from Thailand was dried for several days after the roots were removed and then painted with 'red cement' (No clue as to what that is) before being shipped to me.
The way Harvey did it will usually ensure that the plant picks up where it left off though.

harveyc

Benny, I almost always buy my postage online and if I'm prepared the night before I may do a pick-up request and have them pick up the package at my farm house (a free service). This was a last minute thing.

I know USPS has a weight limit of 70 pounds but don't recall reading of a size limit, though I'm sure they must have one. I just tried out at Postage Price Calculator right now to calculate postage and played around with some numbers. I used a package 74" long x 8" x 8" and had no trouble having it give me a postage amount, so that looks okay.

To reduce the spread of pests and diseases, soil should usually be removed from banana plants, in my opinion. Small plants without a corm are weak and have little stored energy, so that's a different matter. It's best to ship those in soil-less medium, if pests are a potential problem. As I said in my video, I shipped Randy a pup earlier this year and he had it planted two days later and he said it acted like nothing had ever happened. That pup was slightly smaller than those in my video, but had more roots.

When I dug up the Belle today my first attempt was not so good and I seriously damaged a pup so I dug another one for Tony. That plant had some small roots so I cut off all of the leaves and potted it up. That should allow it to grow more roots and the removal of leaves reduces moisture loss until that time.

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harveyc

Hey, Jarred, quite an aerobic work-out you had there! Looks like you had quite a bit of shipping to do.

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bencelest

That's the ideal package for me but where can I buy one of those? I have no clue even thinking at Home Depot.
So shipping a bigger banana is not out of the question if I can obtain them.

"To reduce the spread of pests and diseases, soil should usually be removed from banana plants, in my opinion. Small plants without a corm are weak and have little stored energy, so that's a different matter. It's best to ship those in soil-less medium, if pests are a potential problem. "


That's my way of thinking also in case the agrigods obtain a warrant for me.

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