Quintus

Hey all,

A few years ago I bought a Mohai Banana plant from Raintree Nursery as I'm up near Seattle, WA.

So, here's the situation where I need some advice and clarification... A few years ago, we had a power outage and our main plant died, but luckily one of the pups survived (YAY!). The plant seems to do well, but seems slow to growth and has produced two very strong healthy pups of it's own. First thing I want to know is how to split the pups off and keep the parent plant healthy. It's in a pretty darn large clay pot in the house for winter hold over and we plan to keep it potted because of our climate and the need for wintering over each season. The second thing I want to know is, through searching around, I'm a bit confused on a particular subject. It seems that there's info out there that once the banana plant produces fruit, that the plant will not fruit again and I should cut it down to the ground. But other posts I thought I saw mention that "the next time you should get more fruit"... And it looks like I should be fertilizing about every month in the spring through summer, is that right? So, to reiterate for clarity:

1) What is the best way to transplant (split) the pups from the parent plant in order to keep the main plant healthy?

2) Do banana plants produce fruit year after year or only one year and then they will not fruit again?

3) Fertilizer? When? How much? And how much Nitrogen and such?

Thanks so much everyone for your replies... I'll try to get a pic on here later if possible...

CountryBoy1981

I am a little new to this too, but from other members' posts this is what I can answer for you so far:

(1) The best tool to use to split a pup is a digging bar. You can find it here: Truper Tamper Digging Bar - Post Hole Digger - Ace Hardware

When you use it you need to make sure that you angle it such that you get a nice chunk of the corm from the parent plant. A good illustration can be found here: Google Image Result for http://www.hardytropicals.org/images/blog/banana_pups.jpg

(2) A banana plant fruits only once and then it dies.

(3) You should not worry too much about fertilizer until it gets warmer. Lay off the watering too.

caliboy1994

1) Digging bar as CountryBoy said.

2) After producing fruit, the stem that produced fruit dies. The pups will continue to grow and produce year after year.

3) No fertilizer until things warm up. Water only to keep the soil slightly moist. Banana plants like lots of nitrogen (N) and potassium (K) in their fertilizer.

I've never heard of a Mohai banana. Can you post pics?

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trebor

Double Mahoi Cavendish maybe ?
OH GOODIE I HOPE I CORRECTED A SPELLING ERROR SO I CAN SHOW MY WIFE

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sunfish

I don't think you want to use a digging bar to remove a pup from a clay pot,


Musa Double (Mahoi) - Bananas Wiki

edzone9

To Split The Pups , I Like To Use a 12 Inch Saw , Cuts Like Butter With Lil Or No Trauma To The Pup & Mom .

The Other methods seem To Be a Lil Violent & may causae trauma to Both Plants ..

Good Luck..

Abnshrek

Ain't that the truth.. unless its a minature one like I made & its all good. :^)

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Quintus

" The pups will continue to grow and produce year after year." Statements like these are what have confused me. What I think you are saying then, is that pups will continually be produced from parent plants (until the parent plant fruits and then dies), whereas the pups as soon as they fruit will die as well... Am I correct in what I believe the message to be here?

Quintus

And if I want bananas each year then... I'm assuming I'm going to need 3 to 4 of these suckers growing at all times (figuring a 3-4 year maturity rate on average for each new pup)?

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Abnshrek

and a greenhouse? :^)

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Illia

Hello there also from northwest Washington I have a "Mahoi / Double" as well. And, my first advice to you actually is that although Raintree is an awesome nursery, if you want bananas at a good price, best to purchase instead from either Florida Hill Nursery or Wellspring Gardens. MUCH cheaper and although a tiny bit smaller of plants, it doesn't matter. Nanners are fast growers.

Another thing, yeah, I'd highly recommend a greenhouse. To get continuous fruit, your best option is a greenhouse big enough to fit some dwarf bananas in it, such as the Double, and good enough to protect them during the winter (Doubles are not cold hardy) or have enough strength or help to dig up the plants in the winter before it freezes, and store them in a cool dry place, without any dirt, until the next spring. Growing a large banana like that indoors for so long is why you're not getting fruit yet. Too little light and likely not enough either heat or nutrients. With a nice greenhouse you could get fruit in less than 2 years. Or possibly a couple months over, but, I'd suspect less with a dwarf like Mahoi.


I highly reocmmend, yes, you have at least 4 banana plants and it's always fun to get more and different varieties. I started out with a Double from Raintree, then moved on to Namwah, Thousand Fingers, Raja Puri, Velutina, etc etc. There's actually quite a few great cold hardy varieties with superb fruit. I personally haven't gotten any of my larger cultivars to fruit yet but am somewhat close. It takes patience (more than a year) when overwintering them instead of letting them grow through the winter. I don't have a tall enough, warm enough greenhouse during the winter to do that yet.


So, what I do here, is let the parent plant grow and do its things, perhaps let a few pups grow with it until just before blooming time, and separate and grow the other pups and their own different times too, but also - Grow multiple starter parent plants, some of different varieties. I had a double with one pup by its side, several others separate, and several Namwahs waiting also to sprout their own pups. That was before I learned how to properly overwinter bananas though, so, everyone but one of the Namwahs died that winter and now this winter is a bit different with a clean slate of more/new bananas.

Quintus

Yeah, I was looking at the Goldfinger or California Gold from here: Banana Trees Banana Plants

And I have actually moved the banana out every summer (this parent plant that survived the freeze is just on it's second year), but I didn't know about fertilizing and such... just kinda watered it, added a bit of compost to the pot, and let it do it's thing... I was too busy starting up a garden the last couple of years.

And Illia, you bring up something I didn't know and would like to ask about- I didn't know I could store them dry without dirt somewhere cool... My question is, if I do that with no dirt, won't the root dry out where it could endanger the plant? Thanks again everyone... appreciate the feedback (plus I've been researching more and more today- aka- let's see how many tabs I can open at the top of my computer screen). :P

caliboy1994

Each stem produces a head of fruit, and then dies. New stems emerge from the underground root system constantly, each which will eventually produce fruit.

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"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings."
~ Masanobu Fukuoka

Find me on linktree here as Solarpunk Farmer:
https://linktr.ee/solarpunkfarmer