My Helen’s hybrid seedling really does have gorgeous leaves, so I’d say that it’s worthy of keeping for ornamental reasons even if the fruiting doesn’t work out. Its latest leaf was just finishing unfurling this evening:
The contrast to the underside is pretty stunning. Just tried out the “night sight” camera mode:
The Helen’s hybrid seedling has its first pup!
M. thomsonii still pupless, but growing ok:
And here are a few of the mystery seedlings:
Probably because parthenocarpy isn’t necessarily triggered by imbalanced ploidy, but maybe when that causes a plant to be sterile we more easily notice whether it just so happens to ALSO be parthenocarpic. I’ve actually been wondering if ‘Centennial’ crabapple is parthenocarpic (I don’t know its ploidy) because the majority of the ripe fruit from my tree have zero seeds in them.
Back to bananas, I’m really hoping that some of my potted banana seeds from last year will sprout this year so I too can trial the ‘Helen’s Hybrid’ type.
I do believe that someone with the right skillset (and who can afford to dedicate the time) would be able to develop cold hardy SEEDLESS bananas, but even with seeds bananas can be useful if they are productive with good flavored pulp. I imagine a food mill would make quick work of separating the seeds from the pulp if there was enough of a crop to be worthwhile for processing. Sure the mush isn’t the same as biting into a seedless banana, but it would be a fun ingredient to have for making puddings, baked goods, smoothies, etc.
If any of mine produce pups this summer I’d be happy to offer them up as part of a trade!
I successfully identified all the mystery seedlings last fall, but forgot to update this thread. I lucked out with exactly 2 of each variety, and planted one of each outside and reserved one of each in the greenhouse to plant out this spring.
For what it’s worth, the Helen’s hybrid seemed to get frost damaged much more quickly than the other two, and the thomsonii seemed to take the most cold before damage. But they all melted in the 16°F low in December.
Despite a very cold winter, it looks like Helen’s hybrid had its roots survive, as it’s already sending up a new pup (this isn’t the first pup mentioned above, that one died back too)
No signs of life yet in the other two that were outside over the winter.
I’m late to this topic, but i have a large patch of m. Velatina in zone 8 Raleigh. They grow like weeds. They made lots of seeds last year and dropped them all around the growing plants. I have hundreds of seedlings popping up. Prior to this event I had piled several feet (no joke, started with maybe 3 ft high) of wood chips around them in a 10ft radius. That has been breaking down for three years now.
Do those produce any amount of edible flesh, or are they basically just banana shaped seed pods? My hope was to find a banana that could survive here and be eaten, even if eating it would be less enjoyable with all the seeds. I know that M. basjoo is basically inedible, and that’s the main one people grow here, but not so sure about M. velutina.
It’s similar to basjoo unfortunately. Taste is ok, but it’s a banana shaped seed pod 
. I’ve tried raja puri using the same methods, and I couldn’t get it to grow large enough to flower. 3 years of trying. I dug it all up and moved it to some family land in north Florida (9a) and now it’s fruiting.
Nice. I got a small percentage of my Musa velutina seeds to germinate last year, but so far none of them appear to be coming back despite being overwintered in the greenhouse.
Still no germination on my Musa × ‘Helen’s Hybrid’ seeds planted last year.
Both of my Helen’s hybrid seedlings survived the winter again (at least their corms), and with an El Niño winter ahead of us, I’ll cross my fingers and hope maybe the p-stems will have a chance of making it through the next one to perhaps fruit next year. One can dream…
I recall members of Bananas.org who lived in the midsouth doing the banana shuffle – indoors, outdoors … etc. with a number of reasonable edible cultivars. One woman had flowering success in 5 years, most everyone else experienced repeated die back, new corm generation, and no flowering.
My goal here was just an ornamental plant that might occasionally produce fruit that could be eaten as a novelty (I have never tried eating a seeded banana, but I’ve seen the photos and understand how seedy they are). It seems unlikely it’ll fruit anytime soon, but I’m sure every once in awhile we’ll string together a couple mild enough winters.
Did the thomsonii survive?
The first one did not survive the previous winter, the second one hasn’t sprouted yet this spring, but it’s too soon to declare it dead. I’ll dig up the corm in a few weeks if it hasn’t sprouted by then.
Here are before and after photos for our first frost, which was only 30°F (-1.0°C). These two Helen’s hybrid seedlings did not get as large this year as the last two years, I wonder if their corms are failing to store as much energy each year as they expend regrowing.
First seedling:
Second one:
At least one of them is still alive after our very intense freeze in January, which I thought was bad enough to maybe kill the corm as well. Over six days we had 100+ hours below freezing, 26+ hours below 20°F, and a low of 14.7°F.
That’s amazing. Appreciate the post, updates and commitment.
Helen’s hybrid is still growing, but it’s slowing down enough that I’m guessing only one more leaf will open before the first p-stem killing freeze.
Ha, I had exactly this happen to me this year with some Dalbergia seeds.
