Jack Daw

Chong, I didn't get it. Are those plants you got the famous never to be found and never to be for sale Musa 'Texas Star'? Do you also have California Gold?
Seems funny, that so many people hate that company and for you, no disappointment so far. Intriguing.

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Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

supermario

As you mentioned, I live in an area where I have several options within driving distance..so I didn't take TyTy seriously for one second. I stumbled upon them while looking up information on Figs.

I will do some digging and try and find a good source for you. Dare I ask..do you know of any other names for the Texas Star?

chong

Ronald,
I would certainly be most grateful if you can do that. I wouldn't want you to make a special trip, though. Only if you're over that way for a primary reason. And you don't have to dig them yourself. You can let them do it. Just watch them do it. So, if the offer stands, I can PM you my phone number, and you can call me me when you're going there, and make the necessary arrangements. Or, we can just PM each other.

And yes, I've been wanting to have them since the 70s. They wanted an arm and a leg then.

I can see that you're also one of those who go by the "Seeing is knowing" principle.

Thank you very much.

Chong

ron_mcb

chong it shouldnt be a problem at all..you have been pmed.
when i get there i will even send you a pic of the mat and the fruits if its producing any yet.

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naw mek smaddi ditate fi yuh. naw wan gwan a pawty yuh naggo.

chong

Hello Jack,
Texas Star was coined by Ty Ty Nursery(TTN) in Ty Ty, Georgia. Obviously, they are the only ones who have "Texas Star" because they're the ones who named that banana. Whether or not it is, in fact, the same as another banana is subject to conjecture by many. Other sources may be from previous customers who bought their plants from TTN. I have found some in the internet, but their posts have been several years before I found them, and either they no longer have their email addresses, or they just do not want to respond. I have found 2 other sources, but as I reported earlier, one was bogus, and the other is still unconfirmed. So, until they can produce the fruit, there is no telling whether they are the same Texas Star.

I have just obtained one CA Gold and one CA Hardy.

No, I don't think it's funny that a lot of people don't like this company because they believe the many people that have given them very bad reviews. So, that is to be expected. Even I, for a long time, did not want to buy from them because of the bad news. But when I saw their prices drop, I could not restrain myself and I ordered. And I was pleasantly vindicated with their service.

supermario

I am sure you guys have researched the topic extensively, but here is what I found:

It's weird that there is soo much interest in this banana tree, yet there is very little information about it on the internet. The only article I found discussing it's origin was written by guess who....An employee(probably owner) of TyTy. I even recognized his name from the Amazon feedback section...He had posted positive reviews for TyTy as if he were a customer!!!
Here is the article: thePhantomWriters.com / thePhantomWriters.org:: Article: The Modern Soft Yellow Banana Evolved From The Cooking Banana As The Number One Fruit In The World

I have seen some other sites mention the Texas Star, but only briefly as a cold hardy banana. The link posted by somoeone else earlier describes Texas Star as a dwarf orinoco... Since no credible source for the tree seems to be available...I think TyTy has been pulling a fast one for years. If there truly was this miraculous cold hardy banana...why wouldn't other nurseries follow suit? Do a little digging and you'll see that ALL the sites with info and/or Texas Star banana plants for sale are run by TyTy.

supermario

Oops..didn't read below post...

ron_mcb

mario i dont know what legal rights they have over the tx star,but here in ga there is an onion called the vidailia sweet onion..no one outside of a 50 mile radius (if im not mistaken)of the city of vidialia can grow it,and give it that name. there is sopposedly something in the local soil that gives the onion a unique flavor. its trademarked..i dont know what rights tyt ty has on the name 'tx star".

i saw the article..malcom is the owner of ty ty

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naw mek smaddi ditate fi yuh. naw wan gwan a pawty yuh naggo.

harveyc

Hey Ronald, that's nice of you to offer. I'd take you up on it except that I expect to get a pup or two this summer from another hobbyist with a lucky Ty Ty experience who I shipped some other pups to recently.

Chong, if I had any Cal Gold pups this year I would have sent one to you but I don't see any yet. My two plants are each about 4' tall and just now are putting on some decent growth.

Belle is another one for which I have high hopes for and maybe I'll be blessed with a reasonably early flower this year from the plant I got from Jon last June. We only got down to 28F-30F this past winter so it's not a great test, but it started growing for me this spring faster than my Cal Golds or my CA Hardy, though my CA Hardy wasn't very well established going into last fall.

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harveyc

I doubt that Ty Ty has done anything to protect the Texas Star name as it's too costly to trademark and even more costly to enforce, all for something that does not have a significant market. There's probably only a hundred or couple hundred of us crazies that really would care about it. The Vidalia onion market, on the other hand, is much larger and worth protecting.

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chong

I can probably get in trouble with a certain member here for saying this. Objectively speaking, under that premise, excepting for the reputation of the vendor, the same could be said about CA Gold. Both vendors claim that they got their original plants from around the same area in TX. Both describe their plant as dwarf, can withstand cold temperatures, and edible. The only difference is one has independently established his credibility, and the other only thinks he has.

I can say this about TX Star: I've heard about it at least 10 years before I heard about CA Gold. Matter of fact, the first time that I heard about CA Gold, I was skeptical, but soon was convinced by the TV footage of his "plantation." When I heard about TX Star, Al Gore had not yet invented the internet, so I could only rely on their ads and occasional newspaper/magazine clips. So, I don't think that TTN is necessarily a copycat.

john_ny

For what it's worth; In the 70's I had a business importing aquarium fish, and selling them to pet shops. In 1977 we moved into this house. I liked it, because the property was large (as per New York City standards) and I could keep my fish stocks right here. When we moved here, there were some Azalea bushes here. I took cuttings and rooted them. However, I didn't know the names of the varieties. Then I saw, in American Nurseryman magazine an ad from someone in North Carolina, offering rooted cuttings of named varieties of Azaleas. I figured it was just as easy to grow named varietis, as unnamed, so I bought some. Rooted cuttings was all they did, but then I got a letter saying they had planted any unsold cuttings in 3 gal. pots, to use as stock plants, but were overstocked, so they were selling the stock plants really cheap. I bought a trailerload. In the meantime, I was a Navy Reserve transport pilot, and anytime we went someplace warm, I'd bring my fish traps, and catch some of my own. One day, while sitting on a stream bank, in Panama, waiting for something to get in my trap, I noticed many palm seedlings growing. (This was the time, when there was a house-plant craze), and many stores (short lived) opened selling just these. I decided I could sell some of the palms, so brought them back. These things got me started in the plant business.
Then, approx. thirty some years ago, my wife's boss invited us to spend a couple of weeks at their vacation house, in St. Lucia. While there, we met many people, as they knew everyone. (Wife's boss and his wife were both MDs). Met some of the locals, and asked about the bananas. Was told they were Gros Michel, and got to bring a couple of corms back with me. Had to give them up, when they started to push the tiles out of the suspended ceiling, in our playroom.

However, at that time, I saw an ad from TY-TY, offering several different Azaleas, that I did't have, for a very good price. I ordered the Azaleas, and added a couple of things else, like a filbert & some others.
I got the order, and there was no Azaleas (they said they were sold out) and the filbert certainly did not produce nuts like they said it would. It looked like some little wild thing that they had dug out of the woods.
So, needless to say, nothing ordered from them again.

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John

chong

Mario,
Thank you. The name "TX Star", as I explained earlier to Jack, was coined by TTN. I've seen other vendors use that name on their bananas, but they have no connection with TTN, so there is no way know if they are, in fact, the same plant, except in the case of one that I have, if it fruits and the TTN TS fruits, then I can compare them. Cold hardiness appears to be the same. Maybe a little better than CA Gold, even.

Regards,
Chong

PS. For Figs, have you checked out Jon's(Pitangadiego) site "We Be Bananas"(Figs4fun)? Great stuff!

harveyc

Chong, you continue to make a reference to getting in trouble with some member here. Such vague comments reminds me of some other member who no longer posts here. This just causes more confusion and is more likely to cause trouble than saying what you're thinking, IMO. If you're talking about Jeff Earl, he doesn't ever bother to visit here unless I happen to mention something to him that he might want to comment on (like when he had an auction running last year under his new eBay ID and Taylor questioned if it was really Jeff Earl). I'm going to visit Jeff Earl tomorrow to pick up a LHI banyan and check out his big flowering Mauritius lychee, but wouldn't bother to mention any discussion about speculation of the Texas Star and Cal Gold being the same.

To the best of my memory, Jeff hasn't said what part of Texas he got his original Cal Gold from. I remember it was mail order, before Al Gore invented the Internet, and was some old Mexican guy that didn't have a name for it. Jeff's comments are posted in some old thread which I've linked here before if you really feel inclined to see what he says about it. Also to the best of my knowledge, he's never bought a Texas Star from Ty Ty. Maybe I'll give him one if I get enough pups this summer.

You've made a comment here that Texas Star might be a little more hardy than Cal Gold. On what do you base this statement? I've never read of anyone growing them both and comparing them. I plan to do that but on a small scale with no statistical significance, but will make some comments about them when the time comes.

Just be happy, warm weather is here!

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Rmplmnz

Probably based on availability of plant matter and customers..lol.....

chong

That's not what I said, exactly.

That's not what I said, or even implied, either.

I will post some side by side pictures after I take them.

Jack Daw

I'm already looking forward to seeing this pictures. Musa 'Texas Star', Musa 'Calfornia Gold' and other musaceae family members showing high resistnace to cold and/or frost is interesting enough for me.

__________________
Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

chong

Here's a photo of TX Stars and CA Gold. I just took these outside to do a side by side photo shoot:

L to R: TX Star from Ty Ty Nursery, CA Gold, (Next 3) TX Star from TX. Taken 05-22-2009.

As stated earlier, the TX Star from TTN was set immediately next to the sliding door to the house, but still inside the greenhouse. The CA Gold, and the 3 TX Stars from TX were located in the middle of the greenhouse, approximately 5-feet from the exterior glass. There is a 750-watt oil-filled heater between the CA Gold and TS from TX.

For further comparison, here's a Dwarf Orinoco that was smaller than the CA Gold when they were transferred to the greenhouse in late October:

As the photo depicts, this plant about 18-inches from the West glass and 2.5-feet from the South glass. The 750-watt heater, mentioned above, is 12-feet away to the East. The wall of the house is 3-feet from the railing to the right of this picture. Leaves that are showing on the right of the photo are from the Cinnamon Tree (Canela) that I bought for $14.98 last early December from Lowe's.

Peace, Bro' . . . . . .

harveyc

I asked Jeff Earl today if he had ever tried growing Texas Star and he said he hadn't. He said he got his banana from Texas in the 80s and it was over 10 years after that before he had heard of Texas Star. I haven't grown Dwarf Orinoco (I would have except Wellspring sent me a mystery banana instead, though I was very happy with the quality of the fruit which was harvested in late December, just 4 months after flowering), but many others have grown it and have reported that California Gold has fruited for them much more reliably.

I don't believe comparing potted bananas is a reliable way to compare most bananas as watering is more variable, etc. I also think you need to take a banana to fruiting to make a meaningful comparison.

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GanEden

Sorry to sound jealous but it seems we just dont have any specialist nana nurseries here in Oz.