Grow Banana Plants

Bananas not only contain vitamin B6, vitamin C, and potassium, but they're also widely enjoyed as snacks, desserts, and even in meals. Depending on where you live, however, the bananas you find in stores may have been shipped halfway around the world, after having been picked green and placed in air-tight rooms filled with ethylene gas to hasten ripening. To avoid this, you may be able to grow your own banana plant in your backyard, perhaps even experiment with varieties that produce fruit with better flavor rather than shelf life.

Steps

 * 1) Select your planting site. The area you set aside for banana plant should be large enough to accommodate their eventual size. Banana plants are often mistaken for trees because the thick, sturdy pseudostem looks a lot like a trunk, and the entire plant can get quite large (7.6 m or 25' tall, with leaves up to 2.7 m or 9' long). There should also be enough sunlight for the leaves and, more importantly, to keep the soil surrounding the roots warm (over 68°F or 20°C) or else the plant will dramatically slow down its growth.
 * 2) *Make a sun chart of your yard to determine which areas get the most sunlight for the longest part of the day.
 * 3) *A greenhouse will help to keep the soil warm, but there should be enough space for the banana plant to grow.
 * 4) *If you have multiple plants, don't put them so close together that they'll eventually shade the soil, keeping it too cool for growth. Also, if they're too close together (less than 5' or 1.5m apart) they'll compete for nutrients and won't produce as much fruit.
 * 5) *If space is limited, dwarf varieties (e.g. dwarf cavendish) are worth considering.
 * 6) Clear the planting site. Remove any plants or weeds that are growing. Dig a hole with a diameter of 50cm and a depth of 30cm. Add fertilizer at the bottom if necessary. Any kind of fertilizer can be applied, organic or inorganic. Just remember to only apply recommended amount of fertilizer, because too much may burn the plant's roots and kill it. For organic fertilizer, you can use compost, well composted manure or other organic fertilizers.
 * 7) Select your planting material. It could be a banana sucker, or a tissue culture one. You can get banana suckers from your neighbors and friends, or buy them on the Internet. Select suckers about 1ft or 1m high with sword-like leaves. Use a sharp spade or iron bar to separate the sucker from the mother plant. Always remember to be very careful in sucker extraction. Fertilization of the mother plant must immediately follow and the hole should be backfilled to prevent the mother plant from leaning.
 * 8) *Tissue cultured banana plants are those that are produced in laboratories, and are commonly found on the Internet and in nurseries. Tissue cultured bananas produce higher yields and larger banana bunches.
 * 9) *Diseases (such as fungus) could be transmitted if you get banana plants from a friend or neighbor. The likelihood of this is lessened by buying from a commercial nursery.
 * 10) Remove all the old and broken roots. Simply cut the old and long roots with sharp scissors, leaving a few centimeters of roots left or none at all. The roots will soon grow. Pulling the roots is hard work because the roots are tough, and sometimes you remove the outer layer of the roots and this leaves a tough thread-like root. Also remove broken and cut leaves. Leaving about five good leaves of a tree is usually enough. Too many leaves cut the sunlight badly and make the underground wet.
 * 11) Put the plant in the hole you dug previously. It should be in a standing position. Cover it with soil, tamping down firmly but not too much.
 * 12) Water the plants daily if the soil is dry. Don't water if it's wet.
 * 13) Feed your plants with plenty of fertilizer every month. Since bananas are rich in nutrients, they're heavy feeders, drawing a lot of nutrients from the soil (especially potassium). If the soil in your area is not over 68°F or 20°C for 9 months out of the year, focus fertilization on those months when it is to encourage the plants to grow and bear fruit during that time.
 * 14) *Chop up spent banana plants and use them as mulch to return potassium to the soil. If it's unsightly, cover the chopped vegetation with other types of mulch.
 * 15) *Consider citrus fertilizer combined with a high-potassium product.
 * 16) *If you're growing the bananas organically, apply both compost and organic fertilizers. Only apply the recommended amount. Too much will burn the plants.
 * 17) Remove all the leaves that dry out and those that are diseased. If diseased plants are discovered, treat them immediately, or uproot and rouge them. Insect pests should also be controlled as soon as they are found.
 * 18) *Examples of major plant diseases include: Bacterial Wilt/Moko Disease; Panama Disease/Fusarium Wilt; Banana Bunchy Top; Blackhead/Root Rot/Toppling Disease; and Black Leaf Streak.
 * 19) *Examples of major plant pests include: Corm Weevil; Banana Aphid; Mealy Bugs. Fruit pests include: Flower Thrips; Red Rust Thrips; and Scarring Weevil.
 * 20) Desucker your plants. This is important to control the plant population, get bigger bunch sizes and healthier plants, and limit disease pressure. Choose only one sword sucker for next year, usually the first sword sucker to emerge. This is called the "follower". All the suckers should be cut off at ground level and scooping the center then covering with soil. If the sucker grows back, simply repeat the process but this time, instead of just scooping the growing point, slice or deeply penetrate the growing point using an iron bar or wooden stick. This should be done if suckers are 1 foot high. If the selected follower has suckers, just follow the desuckering process. Always remember to choose the third follower. When the mother plant shoots out the flower bud, stop the desuckering process and leave it to grow.
 * 21) *The "follower" is the term used for the first banana sucker of the mother plant that will be left to grow and when the mother plant dies, this will be the next one to fruit. The term "follower" can also be used for the next suckers that are chosen to grow freely and be the next one to fruit. Consult the image given: The one on the left has fruit, the "follower" is on the right, almost of the same height as the mother plant.
 * 22) *Wild bananas produce more suckers than common bananas. Water suckers (suckers that are still young but have wide leaves) should be killed immediately. In dwarf varieties, small sword suckers are usually mistaken for water suckers (See "Tips").
 * 23) Support the plant to avoid toppling of the plant due to strong wind or bunch weight. There are 3 easy ways of doing it:
 * 24) *Wire/Rope and Bottle Method - cut off the bottom of a plastic bottle. Insert a very long wire/very strong twine through the mouth and bottom of the bottle. Crunch the bottle to make it bendable and soft. Let the banana stem rest on the crunched bottle and pass the wire through the stem and pull the stem a little bit backwards and tie the rest of the string to a strong support (e.g. strong tree, post) and tie tightly. OR instead of both ends of the rope being free, one end can be tied against itself to make a small loop big enough not to crush the pseudostem (see image). In this method, only one end of the rope is free, but this is only necessary if the rope is too short. Make sure that the rope is strong enough to support the leaning plant.
 * 25) *Single Bamboo Method- Use a 3m (10') long bamboo pole. Cut a piece of slingshot-shaped wood 10cm (4") thick and 60cm (2') wide. Insert the "handle" of the slingshot-shaped wood into one end of the bamboo. Let the stem rest on the middle of the "Y" and push the bamboo upwards a little bit so the stem is wedged into the "Y" tightly. Bury the other end of the bamboo (the base) deeply into the ground. Tamp very firmly.
 * 26) *Double Bamboo Method- Use two 3m (10') long bamboo poles. On one end of the poles, tie them together with strong wire 30cm (1') from the end. Open up the poles to form a letter "X". Let the stem rest on the short end, push upwards a little bit to create pressure, and bury the other ends of both poles. Tamp very firmly.
 * 27) Look for the main flower. The banana plant flowers after 12 months, depending on your climate (usually it takes 9 months in the tropics). A sign of flowering is when the foliage decreases in length, compared to other leaves (do not confuse this with the Banana Bunchy Top Virus. See "Tips" below)
 * 28) *Remove the main flower/bud 3-4 days after the first appearance of the last hand. This is a sterile, male flower called the "banana heart". The odor is quite strong. Some varieties of banana plants produce edible banana flowers that are popular in Southeast Asian cuisine, but if you try to eat a flower from an unsuitable variety, it will be quite unpleasant.
 * 29) *It may be advisable to remove the last hand because it has a bigger chance of wilting.
 * 30) *Remove all the obstacles that touch or damage the bunch, and relocate the plant supports.
 * 31) Cover the bunch with blue plastic. Nylon rice sacks work well too. Remember that the plastic/sack must have holes at the bottom for drainage of water. Tie the sack with soft twine several inches from the first hand. Covering the whole banana fruit with a big blue sack when it is about 2 months old is good practice. It makes the fruits get bigger and also gives good protection from the birds, bats and squirrels which like the banana fruit very much. The bag will help to hold available heat (a miniature greenhouse of sorts) as well as trap the ethylene oxide released by the fruit, which accelerates ripening.
 * 32) Harvest the bunch 70-80 days after bagging the bunch, or if the last short leaf is starting to die (do not consider the very small last leaf as this will dry as soon it is opened). Another sign is when the plant has 6 or less of the functional/alive leaves.
 * 33) Cut a notch halfway into the tree, opposite the side of the bunch.
 * 34) Carefully let the tree bend and cut off the bunch.
 * 35) Cut the tree in half with a horizontal cut halfway up the main stem after harvest. Take care of the next sucker. This time you can continue the desuckering process by removing the unwanted suckers of the previous fruited plant. Now you can dig out all the suckers of the previous mother plant, except the follower and the follower's suckers. For the suckers of the follower, do the same desuckering process described earlier. You could also transplant the unwanted sword suckers, if any, and destroy water suckers. After a month, more or less, dig out the dead stump and chop it into pieces. Be careful not to harm the corm of the follower and its suckers.

Tips

 * In taking suckers from mother plants, gently separate the sucker from the other plant by using a spade or an iron bar to break the tissue that connects the sucker from the mother plant. This "tissue" is found at the sucker's corm. The sucker may survive this "separation" but make sure that the sucker already has its own root system. In some cases, the mother plant is planted deep and sucker separation is often difficult. If this is the case, find another one.
 * Avoid over watering. Over watering will result in corm rotting and dying.
 * When it comes to desuckering dwarf bananas, do not be confused. The very first or the second leaf of the emerging sucker should be narrow, not wide.
 * Most bananas require at least 20 months without freezing to produce fruit.
 * Take care while transplanting/desuckering the mother plant. If this is done incorrectly, the mother or the sucker will die.
 * The "Banana Bunchy Top Virus" is one of the most dangerous plant diseases. Once infected, even a single sucker, all the plants that are connected (including the mother plant and all its suckers) will be infected and all the plants are stunted. The virus is spread by a banana pest called "Banana Aphid" (Pentalonia Nigronervosa). These pests are slow and live in colonies and they can transmit the disease in hours.
 * If the newly planted banana is accidentally damaged (e.g. hit by ball) or if the plant is growing weak, but the plant is still alive, simply cut the plant in half. The banana plant will regrow.
 * If you want your bananas to grow organically, don't add chemical fertilizer. Apply compost and/or any organic fertilizer.

Warnings

 * Wear old clothes before cutting any part of the banana plant because the sap causes black patches that are very hard to wash out.
 * Avoid taking and planting diseased plants from diseased mother plants.

Related Tips and Steps

 * How to Eat a Banana
 * How to Peel a Banana
 * How to Make Bananas Ripen Faster
 * How to Keep Sliced Bananas from Discoloring