Can you grow a banana at home?

It is believed that it is almost impossible to grow a tropical or subtropical plant at home. For example, a banana is a plant from the tropics, a lover of humid and warm climates. How will he feel in room culture? And is it possible to grow a banana from a seed, and even eat homemade exotic fruits?

Plant features

Many people are used to thinking of a banana as a palm tree and are extremely surprised that it is a large herb. It is demanding to care for (you need to create conditions for it close to the tropics), but it is quite amenable to home cultivation. Moreover, the fruits can also be obtained.

The perennial representative of the Banana family, literally, has no trunk. What we consider to be the trunk of a "tree" is the closely spaced bases of oblong leaves (pseudostem). The rhizome (rhizome) hidden underground is the real stem. An unusual plant, in which everything is not like other cultures, but "upside down".

Refers to monocarpic crops: after the completion of fruiting, the ground part of the plant dies off. The rhizome gives rise to a new plant, forming shoots. Banana quickly grows the ground part: a leaf grows in a week. It begins to bloom in room culture in the third year. A flower forms at the top of the leaf. Moreover, a banana can bloom throughout the entire period of growth, gradually forming a bunch of fruits that ripen unevenly.

Although banana is a herbaceous plant, in the wild it grows to a great height (9-12m). Low-growing (dwarf) varieties have been created specifically for cultivation at home.

Breeding methods:

• seeds;
• basal processes;
• dividing the rhizome.

Important!

The bananas we eat are seedless. These are the fruits of Cavendish varieties that can only be propagated vegetatively. Those that can be grown by seeds are almost inedible: inside the banana there is an abundance of seeds and little pulp. They are grown for decorative purposes.

Indoors, banana can be propagated in two ways.

1. Plant with seeds. It will be a wild subspecies, strong and viable, but its fruits are inedible, since there is little pulp in them.
2. Purchase a sprouted plant. It is, as a rule, a varietal crop obtained vegetatively, capable of "producing" tasty, edible fruits.

It is interesting

In some tropical countries, banana accounts for the lion's share of exports. In terms of sales to other countries, this crop ranks 4th in the world, behind rice, wheat and corn. About 40 species are part of this genus.

Species grown in room culture

Species are conventionally divided into two groups.

1. Decorative, the cultivation of which at home is intended for a variety of interior, for landscaping an apartment. Their fruits are also a kind of decoration, but they are inedible. These include bananas: velvety, lavender, bright red, Chinese dwarf. All of them reach about one and a half meters in height.
2. Fruit species are decorative, and they ripen fruits with good taste. This is a pointed banana, dwarf Cavendish, superdwarf Cavendish, Kiev dwarf, Kiev superdwarf. Their height varies from one meter to two.

It is interesting

The Ukrainian breeder, who was engaged in the cultivation of this crop at home, claims that the yield of the above species is 150 fruits from one "herb tree".

The seeds of this culture take a long time to germinate, like most seeds of tropical plants. Therefore, you can buy an already germinated plant.Subject to all care requirements, it will bloom and bear fruit in a room culture. After purchasing, don't forget to transplant the banana into a suitable soil for it, making drainage and creating the necessary conditions for growth.

Tropical plant from seed: difficult or simple?

The seeds can be purchased at the store. As a rule, the package contains 3-4 seeds. According to customer reviews, they come up, but not as quickly as we would like.

How to properly plant at home? Let's consider in stages.

1. The seed has a dense shell, so it will be difficult for it to hatch. To do this, there is a technique called scarification: a strong shell must be filed, but not piercing or damaging the contents. The main thing is to allow the sprout to come out into the light.
2. You can plant seeds in separate containers, or in a planting box at a distance of 15 cm between future seedlings.
3. A separate technique is the germination of seeds in advance in a moist coconut substrate mixed with perlite. The substrate is poured into a plastic bag and mixed with the seeds. Tied, pierced several holes in it. They are placed in a warm place, and after 2 weeks the hatched seeds are planted in pre-prepared pots.
4. The potting medium for banana seeds is river sand and peat (4: 1). No top dressing is needed, but drainage is needed for further cultivation. You can also prepare another soil mixture - this is forest turf with rotted leaves and needles. They are excellent disinfectants. The mixture will have the following composition: forest sod, wood ash, sand and peat in equal proportions.
5. Seeds planted at home in the spring-summer period germinate after 3-5 weeks, and the autumn-winter planting will increase the duration of seedlings emergence to 3-5 months.
6. The seeds must be spread over the surface and lightly pressed into the soil, without covering them with earth, so that light falls on the seed. To retain heat and moisture, the container is placed in a warm place and covered with glass or film.
7. The film is periodically opened so that the air does not stagnate. If the substrate dries up, then spraying with a spray bottle is mandatory.
   

   Advice

   No need to place seedlings in direct sunlight. If mold appears on the surface due to insufficient ventilation, then this area must be removed, treated with potassium permanganate and monitored aeration.

8. Growing a tropical plant and seed involves a long wait for the emergence of seedlings. It may take 2-3 months for green shoots to appear. Then their rapid growth begins, and after a week, young bananas can be planted in their "permanent residence".

You don't have to buy seeds in the store, but get them yourself from the appropriate varieties at home. If the ripe fruit is covered with brown spots, then the seeds are ripe. Knead the pulp and remove them by hand. We rinse well. For 2-3 days we soak in water at room temperature, the water is periodically changed. Then we wipe the seeds and slightly scrape them. The seeds should be brown in color. After that, we plant it in the usual way.

Advice

If the tropical culture has grown "to the ceiling", then you can cut the top. This will not prevent it from blooming and bearing fruit. But it is better to use dwarf varieties that are specifically designed to grow at home. They also yield crops, tolerate cold, and are disease-resistant.

A wide variety of tropical plants are grown at home, and the banana is no exception. You need to plant it according to all the rules, carefully look after it. And then sit in a chair under the "palm tree" and feel like on vacation in an exotic country.