CanBanana

Hello everyone,

As you guessed it, I was searching around the net to find out what is happening with a banana plant I've had for about 2 years.

I don't know what type of banana plant it is specifically, but I bought it from a nursery here in Toronto, Canada. The little marker that came with the plant says it is a product of Canada Ontario. I've attached two photos.

Anyway, to give you some background, this banana plant replaced a plant I had for about 20 years. This other plant grew from SEEDS from a supermarket I used to work at. But, the plant would never ever grown baby shooters and produced NO fruit. Every year I would bring it outside for the summer and in September I would bring it in. Well two years ago I decided not to bring it out for the summer because it was getting too heavy and left it in the greenhouse. I had gone on a 5 week vacation and when I returned I found it was infested with mealy mites and white fungus residue was on much of the plant. I tried to save it but it was too late and rotted out by October. I used a mixture of neem oil and castile soap to wash them off of the plant. They must have gotten into the plant itself.

So, returning back to my current plant; the little babies on this one have been growing from the roots. Last spring I had the main shoot die on me and one of the secondary shooter took over and has done well over the summer. I don't know what made the pervious shooter die. It started with centre leaves from the crown browning with brown spots until it rotted out.

Since the weather here in Toronto, Canada is very cold in the winter, I brought the plant into my greenhouse at the end of September so it was not exposed to low temperatures yet.

By the beginning of December this issue started to creep up so I thought it was an issue of lighting. So I installed a compact flourescent lamp over the plant and turn it on just before dusk to extend the daylight to about 9 p.m. The humidity is around 50% and the gas heating keeps it around 70F around the clock. I have a ceiling fan that I turn on that keeps the greenhouse air circulating. It stayed moist and I feed it with Miracle Grow food every week.

The greenhouse was thoroughly washed before the plants came it and ever since I brought the plants in, I've been washing all the plants with a neem oil and castile soap mixture. I have many plants close together and I have to keep the insects down. I find that the mealy mites have come back on some plants and found a few on two orange plants I have. So I wash them off. I usually do a good soaking under all leaves, trunk, which includes the banana plant. There were a couple of them on the banana plant but I have been diligent and washing them with the solution.

Can someone tell me if this problem has been brought on by the mealy mites or a lack of sunlight? The banana shoots have shown some of the same thing from the crown leaves, but not like the main plant.

Thanks, in advance for your input.

Attached Images

	CAM00055.jpg (504.8 KB, 37 views)
	CAM00056.jpg (479.3 KB, 23 views)

RobG7aChattTN

I'm not exactly an expert but since no one else has replied I'd at least recommend not fertilizing unless you increase the heat to 85F or so. You also need to be careful about over watering unless it is warm enough for the plant to really be actively growing. I haven't had a lot of luck growing bananas indoors but they like a lot if heat before you can really give them tons of water and fertilizer.