I have two young bananas, a Velvet Banana (Musa velutina) and an ice cream banana. The velvet I grew myself from seed and is probably about a year old, the ice cream banana is smaller, probably younger and I recently bought it.
Both of these are having similar problems. The leaves have black tips, although the newest growth on the velvet doesn't so maybe it's doing better. And the bottom leaves will brown and die. I've been clipping them off but it keeps happening. And the ice cream banana has black spots in the stem. It came this way when I bought it.
I water enough so that the soil is moist but not overly so. They're potted in half peat, half garden soil (from a bag) and vermiculite. They both get fertilized once a month with 15-30-15. These are growing in sunroom conditions with light from the windows. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.
And if any one can answer this, I have a cacao tree with leaves that brown at the ends. It came with the leaves this way and it gets less light than the bananas, same potting mix, same food, but I mist it daily to provide humidity. Any ideas???
I'm kind of in the dark here and don't want my plants to do. It's kind of late to contact the sellers for replacements which I should have done in the first place...
Young Banana Problems
When leaves brown at the tips, it's usually a sign of not enough water, humidity too low or giving fertilize when the root ball is dry or the plant is wilted. The spots in the trunk of your Ice Cream(blue Java) banana are normal(unless you mean big rotten spots, those aren't normal).
Sounds like you might not be watering correctly. I keep bananas in pots around my pool. Mine are in 12inch pots, probably filled with roots but not rootbound and I soak the pots every other day till the water runs out the bottom. Since bananas are heavy feeders I feed them once a week with Miracid. I use Miracid because our water is slightly high pH. I never add fertilize when the plants have gotten bone dry because it burns the leaves and causes root damage. I also add gypsum to the potting mix to absorb salts that are in our water/air because we live close to the Gulf of Mexico.
Also check the undersidesof the leaf along the ribs for spider mites, those will make a leaf brown faster than anything and the mites love to hide there. Try misting the leaves to raise the humidity.
I think it may be the humidity and not enough feeding. I'll start misting them daily and feed more regularly. But do I feed them as often as that if they're growing inside?
I found spider mites on the ice cream so I wiped the plant down with a damp paper towel. Hopefully that took care of it. But everthing I have is getting mealy bugs so I'll probably have to contend with that soon.