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”.
