HARD GRAFT
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Musa x paradisiaca Lam
FAMILY: Musaceae
During a question and answer session at a RFCA meeting in Townsville, Jim Wait remembers that propagating bananas can be plain HARD GRAFT!
I was standing, listening to Bruno expounding on one of his favourite subjects: grafting. "Sometimes the grafts grow away quickly and at other times they metaphorically sit there and look at me. I don't know what is happening."
Within a minute I had left Townsville and I am back in Mackay watching myself. I am about to demonstrate the propagation of bananas to the assembled RFC members. I have picked a 1/2 to 2/3 grown plant which has now been dug out. So far so good. Cut the pseudo stem to about 1/2 metre long. Pare the outer skin off the corm as deeply as is needed to get to clean white corm material (paring away diseased and nematode-infested material). Now cut the psuedostem to within 100 mm of the corm, and demonstrate the new forward eyes that will in time make the new plant.
Now my head is on the block; not a forward eye to be seen!
After some minutes searching I give the eyes away still not realising what is going on, but feeling a bit stupid. Oh well! Onwards! Halve the corm - and immediately the penny dropped!
I had hoped to select a demonstration plant that was still in the control of "vegetative hormones". What I had selected was a plant which was under the control of "reproductive hormones". The eyes had stopped growing and the central part of the corm had started to form the bunch. There was a 5 mm rise in the centre where the bunch stalk was starting its growth.
Did my audience accept my explanation? I would like to think so.
And so back to the other audience. I explained what I felt was the answer to Bruno's problem. It is now in his court to select truly vegetative bud sticks for those species he has been having trouble with. And maybe in a year's time he may like to tell our readers what results were obtained.
DATE: April 2001
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