One of the banana farms that I have been talking to told me that these bananas normally produce pups two years before they produce fruit....which is contrary to everything I have read, but is in line with what I have been finding to be true with my trees. Most info on bananas says that they will produce pups after they fruit and the tree dies...but with my trees, and obviously with the nanners that the nanner farm has, they produce the pups when the trees are young adults, then they fruit after they have gone two winters and not gone dormant after they have pupped. The other two trees that produced fruit this year, had already produced pups, some of which are four feet tall. This is the only tree that produced pups and fruit in the same year...and it is too young to produce fruit...it is about 4-6 feet shorter than the other trees producing fruit. Perhaps, it varies from one variety to another as to when they pup and fruit, I just know that this is what my trees have been doing (with the exception of this one tree) and what the banana nursery told me. I contacted them because everything I had read said that trees pup after the trunk dies...and that conflicted with my own experience and left me very confused. But, perhaps I have been misunderstanding what I have read...and what you are trying to tell me. Perhaps they all produce pups a year or two prior to fruiting, but the pups don't really start maturing till the 'mother' dies, which forces the pups to create their own independent root system?
Also, with these bananas, they produce however many fruit they are going to produce, then the heart starts producing sterile flowers, According to my research, this is normal...some of the blooms are sterile male flowers, others are sterile female flowers (having only partially formed ovaries, or what have you). They also told me that leaving the heart on does not affect the fruit or the tree. Although I definitely see what you mean about how the closer the fruit are to the heart, the less formed they are. But it would be hard to know when to cut the heart off to prevent this as is seen in the case of my three blooms this year where the last tree only produced one viable hand and a partial second hand. OTOH, if you leave the heart on, the hummingbirds go crazy over the nectar and it really doesn't affect the tree or the viable fruit.
I thought the reason that my second bloom produced fewer fruit than the first was due to the heat and drought. I water them heavily, but watering won't make up for drought...no matter what you do. However this third bloom has even fewer fruit in it. It only produced one full hand and a partial hand before it began producing sterile flowers. I don't know if this is because of the heat and drought conditions, or if it is because this tree is so young...or perhaps a combination of the two? It actually works out for the best since the tree is not strong enough to hold the fruit it has...much less a large bunch like the first tree produced....or even a slightly smaller bunch like the second tree produced.
Unfortunately, I can't stake my trees with wood the way it is normally done. The trees are 12-15 feet tall and it would be difficult to get stakes to hold them up in this soil. Plus, I am disabled and unable to engange in manual labor to that extent. And finally, it doesn't help that we get some pretty heavy rain and high winds from tropical weather, so the wood stakes would have to be sunk in the ground 3 feet or so to keep them upright during storms. Fortunately, this one tree that is blooming so young is a good height for me to use muslin to tie the tree to the post that supports the front porch. It isn't ideal, but is better than nothing. The other tree that is fruiting is doing pretty well so far (knock on wood). Even though it bloomed AFTER the first bloom, the fruit are filling out faster than the first bunch. I suspect that is because this bunch gets more sun than the first bunch did. The tree has a really large trunk and fewer fruit, and it seems to be handling the weight of the fruit well.
Anyway, I have cut down most of the first tree (the one that broke). I still have some of it that I need to cut down, but I over did it cutting the first 2/3 of the tree down, so now I have to wait till my body recovers from the labor before I can finish what I started.
I'm curious as to how you cook the rest of the tree parts. I noticed while making mulch from the first tree that the heart of the stalk resembles water chestnuts, while the stalks that surround it resemble celery. I was thinking that if they were edible, they would be great in stir fry. Is that how they are used in the Orient? I'd love to have some recipes if you have any.
Thanks so much for you input. I learned quite a bit from you. I am still trying to find out what kind of musa these trees are....which is why I started the thread in the first place. Before teh stalk broke, I couldn't see the fruit very well...even with a six foot ladder....and it appeared that the fruit were three sided, so we thoguth they were Orinoco. However, now that I can examine the fruit up lcose, I see that they some fo the fruit have four sides, while those on the ends of each hadn have three sides. The trees were here when I bought the house and I have no way to contact the previous owners. Even if I could contact them, they probably wouldn't know.
