Bananas are native to tropical Indomalaya (India/Malaysia/Indonesia), and are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea. All widely cultivated bananas today descend from the two wild banana types: Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana.
Bananas are not real trees, not even palm trees, even though they are often called banana palms. They are perennial herbs. Gingers, heliconia and bird-of-paradise flowers are distant relatives of bananas. Worldwide, there is no sharp distinction between “bananas” and “plantains”.
Banana plants can grow between 2 m and 5 ½ m. They take about 9 months to grow and produce a bunch of bananas. It takes between 3 and 4 months from flower to ripe fruit.
Types of Bananas
Cavendish bananas are the main commercial banana cultivars sold in our shops. Types grown at home include Improved Cavendish, Williams hybrid/Monsmarie, Ladyfinger/ Sugar Bananas, Red Dacca, Ducasse and others.
Growing hints
Banana plants need a sunny position, sheltered from wind.
Bananas are heavy feeders. Fertilizer is normally applied in Spring and Summer. Chemical fertilisers high in potassium, nitrogen and phosphate are used by commercial growers. Organic farmers use chicken manure to fertilise their plants. This is applied monthly fromspring to winter.
Rock Minerals are a good thing to apply.
Banana plants also need lots of water for premium growth. But they do not like being waterlogged.
Remove the bell at the base of a bunch once all the fruit are formed. Bananas with fruit may need to be propped to help support the bunch.
When harvesting look for signs that your fruit are losing their square edges, becoming more rounded and changing colour to a lighter green. Start taking individual hands from the top of the bunch at harvest time. Bunches can be bagged for protection against pests (eating, scratching) also it keeps the temperature all around the bunch to be the same and helps to form the bunch.
After harvesting the banana bunch, the plant (stool, trunk) has to be cut down as close to the ground as possible. Any suckers around the base should be reduced to one only sucker which will grow up to produce the next bunch. The spiky leafed sucker close to the mother plant is the best sucker to keep, not the larger leafed “Water Sucker”. In the home garden two suckers could be left to produce two smaller bunches.
Pest and Disease
Panama disease (Fusarium oxysporum) attacks the roots of the banana plant depriving the plant of nutrients and the plant starves. Even though it is no longer viable for large scale cultivation, Ladyfinger is still grown in areas where Panama disease is not found.
Cavendish cultivars are the only banana resistant to the Panama disease, but they can suffer from a leaf virus which is called Bunchy Top. This is spread by a banana aphid. Plants have to be destroyed if they have Bunchy Top.
Another disease of Cavendish is Brown Sigatoka. Brown sigatoka causes banana leaves to prematurely age which stunts the growth of the plant, causing smaller banana bunches. It can be treated by spraying the leaves with a fungicide.
In 2013 in North Queensland a number of farms were totally cleared of cavendish bananas which had Black Sigatoka, which is another leaf fungus disease. The plant withers away and becomes unviable. Plants have to be destroyed.
A common pest of all banana plants is the banana weevil. It burrows below ground, into the base of the corm and weakens and stunts the plant. To control the weevil, an insecticide has to be sprayed around the base of the plant.
Ripening bananas
Commercially grown bananas are picked green, and ripen in special rooms These rooms are air-tight and filled with ethylene gas to induce ripening of the whole bunch at once.
Home grown bananas can be put in a brown paper bag with an apple or tomato overnight tospeed up the ripening process.
Eating and Uses
The flesh of the banana can vary in taste from starchy to sweet, and texture from firm to mushy. Both the skin and inner part can be eaten raw or cooked.
Banana flower hearts are used as a vegetable in Asian cuisine.
Banana leaves can be used to wrap food in when cooking.
Although bananas are commonly thought to contain exceptional potassium content, their actual potassium content is not high per typical food serving.
The banana stool or trunk is used in the making of textiles and paper.
