This looks so much like thrips damage. I stand very firmly by that. Thrips do not chew leaves- they scrape them when they are very young and when the leaves unfurl scraped cells unfold in manner that you are all posting pictures of. Again, I stress that there are MANY different species of thrips- some of them cause damage that look totally different than this- sometimes is "silver" stippling in the leaves, sometimes it could be purplish discoloration. It really depends on the thrips species and where that species feeds- mature leaves, buds, etc. Thrips that cause damage to immature leaves are extremely hard to find. It often involves removing the leaf at a very early stage and chopping up the plant, and many times you have to unfurl 10 or 12 leaves before you find one. I can possibly only give you pcitures of aglaonema for comparison, and anyone that wants to next day me a crown of affected plant tissue, we'll put it under the scope and have the pathologist look at the cells. The fact that Bwilliams posted that they sometimes grow out of it, and that FOF's friend stated that his observation was that they grow out of it makes me more certain about the thrips potential.
Ensete ventricosum (Red Banana) showing signs of dis-ease
HI....I am going to go by the Plant Pathologist at the U of H Hilo...and come on line...asking Dr. Scott his opinion...OK? i think he would be interested!!!
Carol
Are all of you on his email list of weekly digests of Plant Diseases?
I showed some more of these pictures to my DH. It is likely that calcium deficiency is additionally at work here.
Good point...f4f...we find that calcium deficiency can be the culprit in a lot of cell structure cases!!!!!
so I need to add calcium?
You could try. Dolomite is a great form of it!!!! Readily available to the plants.
How's it doing now?
Finally got a picture of the plumeria leaf. Have a couple more.
Christi
Look carefully and you will see that this is one "leaf". Has a long stem-like in the middle.
There has been no sign whatever of insect damage. These were received in the co-op just a little earlier. Two have already bloomed.
Hi LouC. I went back to your first posting....when you mentioned "definitely not a bug growing like that" at the time I probably thought you were referring to FOF's banana. At any rate, thanks for taking the time to post pictures. I am going to show these to my DH- i may be a week before I get a chance to do that as he because of his schedule. I do not have a definite answer for you, but the 3 things I would suspect in order of probability (these co-op came in from out of the US, right?) are: phytotoxic reaction due to a fungicide or pesticide applied to the plants before the were made into cuttings, a nutrient imbalance of some kind that was present in the plant before it was made into cuttings, or a previous viral infection in the mother plant that has caused genetic mutation. The 3rd picture is a pattern that could fit with thrips damage, but coupled with the other photos seems like it may more likely relate to whatever is going on with the first and second plants. If it is one of the first 2 things I mentioned it may or may not grow out of it.
I believe they were originally grown in Mexico. Thanks for the help. Other than looking odd they don't seem to be in any stress.
Christi
I won't go into details, but all the pesticides that have been made illegal since the 70's are still used in other countries outside the US. In fact, we still manufacture them but just sell them somewhere else. Kind of like what we are doing with cigarettes.
well the darn banana tree has come back. Several more disfigured leaves since the last post, almost overnight, last week sometime, it opened up a nice new perfect, undamaged leaf!
Pics will follow as soon as I get a chance.
I didn't do anything except water it less. My gardener from Guatemala told me I was overwatering it! We have very bad clay soil here, and of course bananas like sandy soil, so maybe that was the answer...
the Ensete is back to normal, and the fastest growing thing in the back yard.
thanks for all the input on here.
New leaf growth looks perfect, what a contrast to the ones that were disfigured...
Those bananas are fun to photograph. Their leaves are so dramatic.
Are banana leaves considered fronds?
Looks great beautiful yard, too.
FOF- so glad your banana is snapping out of it! Interesting question about whether bananas have leaves or fronds. I believe that they have leaves, although frond would seem to fit, wouldn't it?
well since dictionary.com defines a frond as: "an often large, finely divided leaf, esp. as applied to the ferns and certain palms."
So ferns fall into the frond category as well as palms, but it looks like a banana leaf isn't "finely divided."
Apparently there is no such thing as a banana frond.
here's some more pix of this thing.
red and green together makes these look so dramatic, to me anyway
amazing how fast these grow in just one year!
how can you get mad at that?
What kind of fertilizer are you using on that thing?
just regular doses of Miracle Grow. It's not the fertilizer it's the tree. These things grow like mad, only to flower and die in a few years. It's already at least 6" taller than these photos from last week!!!
So I'm enjoying it while it's happening. Don't let the soil dry out, the plant files say.
Yes, I think the Enstes grow quickly. I had one that bit the dust. I think the potting soil it was in stayed to wet. I also have some Eneste glacum and their growing quickly.
I've never heard of Ensete glaucum but googled it and found this amazing photo... WOW! How big is yours?
http://www.palmseeds.net/shop/p/peninsula_palmseeds/img-lib/spd_2007071693143_b.jpg
Mine are still only seedlings. They have started on there second leaf though.
the dis-ease is now in remission...
not showing any signs of mal-aise. New leaves are developing rapidly and perfectly!
Looks great!
I am guessing that the diagnosis was never known for it's odd behavior. Bugs disease mutation?
Mine has shown some odd behavior as well.
bwilliams, what was the odd behavior? Your's looks healthy to me...
yellow variegated leaves.
It looks like a deficiency to me- that streaking. I'll ask DH when he gets back from Puerto Rico.
maybe add a little ironite? that always keeps things green... but don't know if it's good for bananas
DH says that is also calcium deficiency. Try adding some bone meal, gypsum, lime or dolomite to your soil mixes for bananas and using that a couple times of year as a topdress as well.
You guys are making me envious! Where is a good source for Ensete and Banana seeds? I have a few Bananas but I am sure drooling over the Ensete.
Why grow the seed when you can get nice ones at HD for $15, at least you could a couple of weeks ago. They still might have them. They get huge in just a little over a year.