this evening, it looks like the pre-flag has opened up and the flag leaf which appears to be less than half the size of a full sized leaf is out, but coiled up, cigar shaped. it has only been in the ground about 4 months. i read that in the tropics, the growing cycle for kokopo is 8.5 months, 7 months from planting (i assume as growing as a pup still attached to the mother - NOT tissue culture) to flowering and 1.5 months from flowering to fruit maturity/harvest. the plant is about 7 foot tall (pseudostem), about 13 feet total height, and has put out between 25-30 leaves. so, not only is it a short cycle, it’s also a super fast grower. i am looking forward to seeing the flower!
the flower is about to emerge. i had to get on a ladder to take this pic. this is so exciting! i have another kokopo and it’s a few leaves behind this one. both kokopos have produced 10 sword pups for me, they should grow bigger and faster than their mamas. i will have to pot the pups up for the winter and plant them out in the spring.
I declared this my “banana year” and went ahead and planted 6 blue Java pups. I live in Uruguay where coastal winter temperatures are never supposted to go below 30 degrees F. Well, this year (we are in winter right now) we spent 10 days with early mornings dipping to 24F, and ended the streak with one icy, Game of Thrones “winter is coming” morning at 21F. I have no idea what will happen to my Blue Javas. I also have several Prata from Brazil that have survived in my property for 5 years but never bore fruit. Let´s see if they come back up… The Java I placed in a forest-like situation, and they are heavily mulched.
if they get killed to the ground, they usually come back if temps don’t go below 20, the ground here does not freeze though we can sustain air temps in the 20s F, most blue java is actually tall namwah btw if you get fruit from them see if there are “knuckles” on the hand of bananas, if there are then it is blue java
what is your heat zone? i think for growing bananas (and other tropicals) outdoors, especially if you’re zone pushing, then you have to factor in the heat zone in addition to growing zone. bananas prefer temps. in the 80s, for example, where i live 80 degree temps or warmer is common for most of the year, maybe 8-9 months out of the year. this heat zone map is for temps 86F and higher, i am pretty sure where i live that my heat zone is closer to zone 10.
Thank you for inspiring me to add a few more data points to the analysis I created for my temperature data. Looks like I’ve had only 5 days of 86°F+ in the 12 months ending today, and 32 days of 80°F+. I also added number of nights below 55°F because that’s the threshold below which many citrus will stop active growth. I’m probably tracking too many things now, but it’s pretty clear why heat-loving things like Passiflora (and most bananas) struggle so much here even with some protection.
It’s my own website code, my temperature data is stored in a SQL database and I’m analyzing it using PHP code. It’s not listed on the public website yet because I’m still working on tweaking a few things, but you can pick a chart here and click “Run a full report on this date range” just below the chart to see that analysis.
Very impressive! Also everything I will never manage. I have such poor record-keeping skills that when people visit and ask me what are many plants and trees I tell them “No idea, I must have planted it for a reason, it will express at some point”.
i mentioned this in another post “when nurseries send you the wrong trees”, the veinte cohols that i planted are not veinte cohols. i had ordered them (actually 2 came in the pot, so one is actually a pup of the tissue culture) from Green Dreams and they sent me the wrong banana plant and i still have no idea what they are. i was getting suspicious when the plant grew past 6 feet and produced over 30 leaves (veinte cohol is supposed to be very short, not much taller than a 6 foot pseudostem and usually flowers at around 30 leaves) and then i had seen pics from home growers and my plant looked nothing like theirs. here is a pic from a musa reference manual.
so now i am on the search for the real veinte cohol, ideally a field dug sword pup, because i know i can get it to fruit in less than a year, like i did the kokopo. so the mystery bananas are currently over 8 feet tall (pseudostems) and seem like they want to keep growing taller. i have been trying to study the characteristics of other banana varieties, but it’s really difficult without actually seeing these varieties in person and because the mystery bananas have yet to fruit. i’ve decided i’m not going to fertilize them anymore and cut down the watering because i don’t think i want to keep them because they’re too tall and the pseudostem is relatively thin so it would be susceptible to getting knocked down by strong winds. btw, kokopos also have thin pseudostems compared to dwarf namwah, for example, and can easily lean/get knocked down by winds. in fact i had to support my two kokopos this past week when we had a strong storm recently. so, i will most likely chop down the mystery banana plants before winter. banana plants make good chop and drop.
That’s interesting. It keeps on flowering but the fruit just aborts. I guess my choice to cut off the bloom once abortion started was at worst a wash. Didn’t cost me any fruit.
I’ve got a flower emerging on Dwarf Brazilian. Not the best time but maybe the fruit will over winter OK. Or ripen in the cool in winter.
the female flowers form fruit at the top, i have six or seven clusters of fruit there, after that are all male flowers, i have been picking them off as the peduncle grows, that’s why you don’t see the male flowers in the more recent pic. male flowers don’t form fruit so no fruit was aborted.
i was told not to cut off the banana heart because it can cause disease/fungus to affect the bunch, i’ve read cutting/not cutting it doesn’t affect ripening time so i left it on the peduncle.
i read dwarf brazilian takes several months from inflorescence to harvest, even in the tropics.
my bananas slow down if it’s not in the 80s, and my other kokopo just flowered today and hope they will be done before any freezes.
