PITS NEWSLETTER
Volume 22 #1
Winter 2003
Musa acuminata
‘Dwarf Cavendish’
Yes we grew some bananas, we grew some bananas this year! We hoped they would taste as good as the ones we bought in the grocery store, they were much better! Our tree bore 18 fruits ranging in size from 6" to 3". Our ‘tree’, a Dwarf Cavendish’ was purchased from Edible Landscaping in Afton VA 6 years ago. It came in a quart pot and was about 18" tall. We have always been suckers for the ads for those cute little bananas advertised in the back of magazines and have always had at least one banana in the house. Whether they fruit or not bananas are beautiful foliage plants and relatively undemanding.
If you want fruit, they need good light, lots of water and the kicker is space. The term ‘dwarf’ is relative. Dwarf Cavendish bananas will bear when they are between 7-9'. and they will be almost that wide. As our banana grew, we would elevate it on a table, then a stool so we could walk under it. In the end it was large enough to be on the floor (on rollers) and still give us space to walk under it. As the banana grew it was necessary to move it on into a larger pot each year, if not it would topple over. Each time it was transplanted it would grow another foot or two. We have one of our plants children growing in our gym, the light is not terrific and the air is very dry, but it looks robust and healthy. Unfortunately at its next transplanting we will have to elevated it and one day, we may have to move one of the exercise machines.
Much of the following information has been derived from a conversation with Glen Stokes of Stokes Tropical Plants and his excellent book Bananas You Can Grow and W. O. Lessard’s book, The Complete Book of Bananas.
The bananas we buy in the grocery store are sterile. My first question to Mr Stokes was, "If they are produced vegetatively, how come there are so many different types of bananas?"
Bananas are native to tropical Asia and have been cultivated since the dawn of time. There are some 30-50 wild species, but only two are the sources of our edible bananas, Musa acuminata, the yellow desert banana and Musa balbisiana, the plantain. Bananas develop suckers at the base of the mother plant, these sports not always identical to the mother plant. If one of these new plants is of exceptional quality, the grower will isolate it and begin to cultivate the new type.
"Botanists can determine just how much of a contribution each of these species has made to modern cultivars and these cultivars can be designated by a set of handy abbreviations. Musa acuminata in "shorthand" is AA for the diploid species. AAA for triploids and AAAA for tetraploids. Similarly, plants that are derived completely from Musa balbisiana are indicated as BB, BBB, or BBBB depending on the number of chromosomes. Hybrids between these two species can have a variety of abbreviations including AAB (which are the typical plantains)."1
A homey way to understand this is, (forgetting the chromosome counting) if blond blue-eyed aunt Helen (A) has a brown haired blue-eyed boy, he will have uncle Clarence (B) sex and brown hair but his mothers blue eyes. BBA?
Bananas are not trees, but large herbaceous plants that grow from a single corm. The ‘trunk’ is called a pseudo-trunk and is actually composed of leaf sheaths. When the old leaves yellow and fade, cut them off and you will see the sheaths. The actually trunk is the stem of the inflorescence that pushes its way up through the leaf sheaths.
New corms will form at the base of the pseudo-trunk. If you were growing these outside you would allow 2 of the pups to grow. One pup would be half grown and the next just starting. This is not possible in the home. I don’t think there are pots large enough to accommodate three growing bananas. I would let one pup grow until it had 4 sturdy leaves and was about 12" tall and then cut it out and pot it.
When grown under ideal conditions, out doors in a tropical environment, bananas will flower and fruit in 15 months. Why did it take ours 5 years. Mr. Stokes explained: "You only have 3 months of ideal growing conditions a year, multiply that by 5 and you get 15 months".
Growing Bananas in Containers:
Don’t stint on the pot size. Mine was moved on from an 8" to its eventual size of 15" diameter. It was repotted each year to the next size pot.
Put your banana outdoors when night time temperatures are at 60
0 in a spot that is protected from strong winds. If you are
growing it in full sun, slowly introduce the plant to the intense light
(otherwise it will scorch). It can remain outdoors until night time
temperatures fall below 570. During the summer vacation be sure
to keep it well watered and fertilized. It will literally double its size
outdoors. Eventually ours became to big to move outdoors, plus we live on
the coast where even summer winds can blow at 45 kts., this may further
explain why it took 5 years to fruit.
Winter is a holding action for the banana. If one leaf yellows off, don’t be concerned as long as new velvety leaves are developing. Once the day light increases, the banana will go into active growth and must be watered regularly and fertilized. We used 10-10-10. Mr. Stokes suggests, when it is getting ready to bloom, use 6-2-12.
How to know when it will fruit: The plant will have between 9-12 large healthy leaves and the trunk will have a caliper (circumference) of 9- 12". I noticed the new leaves on my plant were smaller and sort of formed a large cup. I thought it might be dying, but low and behold the inflorescence emerged! It took about 3 months for the fruit to develop and only 24 hours for the whole stalk to ripen at once.
Once the banana has fruited the mother plant will die. If it has not sent up a pup yet, one will develop quickly at the base of the old plant. My mother plant had one chunky pup, and once the mother was removed it trebled it size and now has 9 leaves, is 6' tall with a caliper of 10". It may flower within the year.
I don’t think any event in our gardening career has been so exciting. The whole neighborhood, the postman, the contractors and anyone who entered the house watched this miraculous flower and fruit develop. It was more than worth the wait and the extra space.
Sources:
Stokes Tropicals, PO Box 9868, New Iberia, LA 70562-9868, tel: 800-624-9706 e-mail: www.stokestropicals.com , Edible Landscaping, 361 Spirit Ridge Ln. Afton VA 22920, 800-524-4156, e-mail 222.www.ediblelandscaping.com
There are other sources, these are the ones we have used. One word of caution, there is a charming "Super Dwarf" on the market. It makes a lovely foliage plant, but if (unlikely) it bears, it will only have one fruit.
1. Bananas You Can Grow: Waddick, James W. and Stokes, Glen M. Stokes Publishing Co. 2000 e-mail: info@stokestropicals.com
by James W. Waddick and Glenn M. Stokes
Stokes Tropicals Publishing, Co, 2000,
New Iberia, LA. $19.95 (now on sale for $12.95)
Bananas are not the easiest plants in the world to understand. Our edible bananas are derived from two wild species, Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. They are monocots, "seed bearing angiosperms" that do not have seeds! How so many varieties or "types" have developed from these two plants is a mystery that is unveiled in ‘Part II’. Also discussed are; growing in containers, growing in the landscape, forced dormancy, propagation, etc.
Part III the Gallery: The Family, The Genera and The Species. Each section has a hanging side-bar that gives a quick overview; full color picture of the foliage, fruit and flower and a brief text describing the plant in detail. Do not read this section with the Stokes catalog in hand, you will be have to move out of your house for your bananas.
Scattered throughout the book are "factoids" small hanging bars with such miscellaneous information as: "The New England Journal of Medicine reported that a banana can cut the risk of death from strokes by as much as 40%." Dr. John questions this.
Part IV Essential Information: includes a glossary, recipes, zone map and bibliography. If these exotic plants fascinate you, this is the perfect book for further reading.
See above e-mail address