Musa "Pisang Ceylon"

My Musa “Pisang Ceylon” (aka Improved Mysore) fruited last summer. Here’s the pup I chose to keep after cutting down the former stalk. It fruited at about the height of the roof, and I expect next year it will do the same thing.

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That’s a lot of concrete…

Dedicated for 6 planter beds under construction in the rear yard :smile:

The last 2 times I’ve been to southern Brazil(Rio Grande de Sul), we’d buy bunches of small bananas that the locals called apple bananas. Kind of crispy/crunchy with a bit of apple flavor thrown in. Great for out of hand and the locals also fermented and distilled them, not a smooth drink, burnt bad!

Have you ever heard of them?

Apple bananas are usually a cultivars of the Pome Group with triploid genetics AAB.

Not to be out done by the Namwa, my Pisang Ceylon is also pushing up a flag leaf and flower bud!

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The bud :slight_smile:

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The first hand emerges! :banana:

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Sporting seven hands now, with at least a dozen fingers per hand :slight_smile:

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Still crankin’, 10 hands now. These fruits will be 4 inches in length and about 1" in diameter when ripe.

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This is a great photo evolution. Thanks for sharing.

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Male flowers (fruitless) emerging on Pisang Ceylon banana bud.

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So how long before you are eating those? Is this pretty typical time for bloom?

Given our climate, the preferred time for bloom is Jan-April so that they can mature to ripeness on the plant. Unfortunately it doesn’t always happen that way :slight_smile:

I expect to be eating these in June.

Crazy, had no idea how they bloomed or what made fruit set, nice!

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June? Nice… that is pretty quick.

How many pounds can you get off one plant?

The bunch size varies by cultivar, both in number and size of fingers. This cultivar produces about a dozen hands each with a dozen fingers weighing 1/4 lb each – so about 36 lbs total.

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You should get some monkeys and some macaws. You could turn it into your own little rainforest.

I was watching some show over the weekend of those snow monkeys in Japan. They just sit there all day grooming each other. Sitting in a hot spring. Not a bad gig.

I was doing a little research (my wife has cockatiels). I guess down in S Florida there are some pockets of “wild” macaws, conures, etc. Look out at the bird feeder and see a blug and gold macaw squawking…

LOL!

There are some pockets of wild parrots along the San Diego County coast. Thank goodness they’re not here – they devour fruit faster than a pack of squirrels.