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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: question about planting banana pups
« on: June 06, 2023, 04:00:02 PM »
If they fall over then its corm weevils. If the roots are deformed its nematodes. Banana bunchy top virus is spread by aphids and is a systemic virus, once one pseudostem gets the virus the entire clump gets it. No cure and it doesn't kill all varieties, so its just persists and propagates. So you need to kill the entire mat if a single pseudostem gets it. Because of this we need to keep our clumps small so we can easily kill them if they get banana bunchy top virus. Unfortunately the virus is very prevalent here. I have had to kill a mat per month at this location due to our neighbors negligence. Doesn't matter the variety, all are susceptible. Its very hard to grow bananas here in Hawaii due to the humans
We probably have more tropical pests. Fortunately we don’t lose the plants. What happens is that they fall over from disease in the roots but that is mostly confined to cooking bananas. Leaf spot diseases are a problem for some but you still get fruit, just not very much.
Our main go to banana is gros michel. But we have a decent collection beyond that and we get huge racimes without re planting. Only the plantains give a problem.
Peter