Wandering

Hi - from Australia!
I have a few different types of bananas here and 3 types have flowered and fruited. The climate I live in is hot and dry in summer, and cool and wet in winter (my bananas are fine outside in the ground for winter here)

All my bananas flower late spring/early summer, and then take around 6 months for the bunch to then mature and ripen, which usually means they ripen at the start of winter.

Do you have suggestions for speeding this maturing and ripening time up? or is it about average for any non-tropical/subtropical climate?

Thank you!

sputinc7

Make sure they get enough water during the dry season, that will help. Also, bananas need a lot of potassium to fill in, otherwise it takes longer. My Brazilians used to take 6 months, but last time I gave them extra potassium after flowering (Like Ty suggested.) and they were filled pretty good when I cut them after only 3 months before the hurricane last summer. I was surprised by that.

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If you lose your head and give up, you neither live nor win.

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Varieties I supposedly bought: Manzano, Cavendish, Blue Java, Sweetheart, and Gros Michel.
What it seems I actually have: Brazilian, Cavendish, Namwah, Dwarf Red, Gros Michel, Pisang Ceylon, Veinte Cohol and SH 3640, and American Goldfinger. FHIA 1, Paggi and FHIA 17... Always room for one more.

bananimal

I put monthly applications of 6-3-16 from Diamond R. Specially formulated for bananas. They do great. High potassium --- most important.

Wandering

Thank you, I am going to try extra potassium . We don't have special banana fertilisers here so I have bought some potassium sulphate to add in . Hopefully I can speed them up.

raygrogan

With your two seasons it sounds like something is selecting for flowering time. It could be the keiki grow in one of the seasons better. If you have lots of keiki and sometimes thin them out, you might try playing with that as a variable. If you take some pictures and notes, you might be able to figure out a system in a year or two. I think flowering happens roughly a year after a keiki is about head high (in tall varieties) (measuring to about where leaves emerge). So if you want some to bloom as your summer ends, maybe try leaving some about that size and moving the rest. Or just start taking pix and marking keiki with size and date, and then see when they flower.

sputinc7

Bananas have 2 stages, a vegetative one and a fruiting one. The faster you can get thru the first one, the sooner you get to the next one. Plenty of water & nitrogen and potassium during the warm, wet season when they grow hastens the bloom and extra potassium after flowering hastens filling out and ripening.

__________________

If you lose your head and give up, you neither live nor win.

https://sputinc7.wixsite.com/covwc

Varieties I supposedly bought: Manzano, Cavendish, Blue Java, Sweetheart, and Gros Michel.
What it seems I actually have: Brazilian, Cavendish, Namwah, Dwarf Red, Gros Michel, Pisang Ceylon, Veinte Cohol and SH 3640, and American Goldfinger. FHIA 1, Paggi and FHIA 17... Always room for one more.

Tytaylor77

Steve is 100% correct! I agree word for word!

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sputinc7

Ty... I simply repeated what you have told me that you found to be true. It makes perfect sense and so far fits the facts of my own experiences... Take credit where due, sir.

__________________

If you lose your head and give up, you neither live nor win.

https://sputinc7.wixsite.com/covwc

Varieties I supposedly bought: Manzano, Cavendish, Blue Java, Sweetheart, and Gros Michel.
What it seems I actually have: Brazilian, Cavendish, Namwah, Dwarf Red, Gros Michel, Pisang Ceylon, Veinte Cohol and SH 3640, and American Goldfinger. FHIA 1, Paggi and FHIA 17... Always room for one more.