What an amazing project! Can’t wait to follow your journey.
I have dwarf orinoco, namwah and blue icecream banana surviving (but not yet fruiting) my first hot mediterranean summer with irregular watering so they pretty tough.
1 Like
Oooooh. That’s awesome. Drought tolerance during a hot dry summer is a great trait. Let me know if you have any pups later you don’t have plans for!
If two or more flower at the same time, are you going to cross them? 
I was excited to hear that Ice Cream can sometimes make seeds when it’s pollinated.
I didnt even consider landracing bananas until I saw your post😍 If blue java can produce seed I will certainly try crossing them.
1 Like
I hope it makes seeds for you! (Bouncing with excitement at the idea.)
1 Like
thanks to you I just got seeds from m. itinerans, m. acuminata and m. velutina to try. Thank you for the inspiration and my new obsession haha
1 Like
Ooooooh. I can’t wait to hear how they do! 
Please be a banana plant, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, please be a banana plant, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE . . .
Only one sprout that looks like a banana plant so far, and I’ve been faked out a few times over the last month by sprouts that turned out to be grass weeds, but this one really does look banana-y!
If it’s a banana sprout, it’s a Musa aurantiaca, and it’s one I sowed just a week earlier.
None of the ones I sowed originally have come up yet, so I suspect they may all have died. If so, this was likely due to my putting them in coconut coir instead of native soil – as I’ve discovered since then, almost everything seems to rot without sprouting or dies as a seedling from damping off when I try to grow it in coco coir. My native soil sprouts everything just fine, though.
Julia, I’d like to mention again a massive thank you for recommending I use native soil for indoor growing! It’s DEFINITELY the right call!
The only downside to native soil is that it comes with weed seeds, which sometimes sprout and look like banana seedlings and fake me out and disappoint me . . .
But this one is a banana plant, right? Right? I sure hope so!
2 Likes
For anyone who’s interested in what I did this time around:
- I scarified 10 Musa aurantiaca banana seeds with nail clippers, as before.
- I presoaked them for a day in water.
- That water was in a yoghurt container that had small remnants of yoghurt and jam left on the bottom when I put water and seeds in it. I had no idea whether leftover yoghurt bacteria would be beneficial, neutral, or harmful, so I figured why not try it?
- I was also presoaking 10 Rosa canina seeds and 3 dwarf moringa seeds that I put in the same pot. None of the moringas have sprouted yet. Several of the roses may have. See this picture (the banana-I-hope sprout is against the back wall, kind of hard to see unless you look closely):
I still don’t know if the yoghurt bacteria were positive or neutral, but I don’t think they were negative. I’ll probably try it again in the future – if only by default, because freshly emptied yoghurt containers are often lying around, and not-bothering-to-clean-them is more convenient.
2 Likes
Awesome!! Hope it’s a banana sprout!
It looks like a banana sprout!!
I’m so sorry about the low germination rate. Do you use a heat mat? I have an extra one from the olden days with a thermostat if you want another one (couple years ago).
Another soil test to consider for the future-- coco with and without the water crystals.
1 Like
I have no idea what that would be if not a banana - - it’s the ribbing on the leaf that pushes me over the edge
Excited for you!! 
1 Like
It’s getting bigger and has four leaves now, and it’s still looking banana-y! Yaaaaay!
You know what? I was trying to be scientific about the coco coir, so I’ve already tried that! I had containers with the following:
- Coconut coir.
- Coconut coir with water crystals.
- Coconut coir with water crystals and urine.
Two sets of each.
And then another set of three with soil that was slightly damper, in order to test how much moistness was optimal.
No difference between them. No germination from any banana seeds.
I later oversowed them with some other seeds (like squashes and peas) that are quick and easy to germinate, in order to see if the soil was working at all. They all germinated, but didn’t look very healthy. Half of the containers developed a layer of mold. It didn’t seem to matter which of the three groups the container belonged to – containers in all three groups did it.
On top of that, the coco coir seems to be a HUGE source of fungus gnats. My native soil is not. If coco coir is even ever-so-slightly damp – and it needs to be to germinate anything – fungus gnats hatch out in droves. Meanwhile, my native soil occasionally hatches an elm seed bug or something (they’re very common in our ecosystem), but only about one a month. We get more of those things flying into the house from opening doors to walk inside.
A small container with coco coir = about 10 new fungus gnats per day and lots of mold.
A small container with native soil mixed with coco coir = about 5 new fungus gnats per day and a little mold.
A small container with native soil = no fungus gnats and no mold.
The water crystals appear to make no difference to these results one way or another. Likewise urine.
Water crystals seem to correlate with not needing to water as frequently, and make no difference to mold or fungus gnats.
Urine (in small amounts, mixed in with the water I pour on the plants) seems to act as a great fertilizer, and makes no difference to mold or fungus gnats.
Meanwhile, the reason I tried coco coir in the first place was that I was trying to AVOID fungus gnats. I assumed it would be sterile and have no mold or fungus gnat problems. Instead, I am getting exactly the same mold and fungus gnat problems I’ve had with all potting soils I’ve tried in the past.
So, Julia, you really called it when you said to use native soil.
My personal conclusion reached: No more purchasing growing mediums, ever again!
I’m thinking the next test to try should be:
- Planting without presoaking.
- Presoaking with water in a clean cup.
- Presoaking with water in a yoghurt container I didn’t bother to completely rinse out.
I’d really like to see whether the yoghurt bacteria is beneficial or neutral. My hypothesis is that it’s mildly beneficial, and I’d like to get clearer results. It would be awesome if it is.
1 Like
I would love a heat mat, if you have an extra one! Especially if it has a thermostat. Testing out “with and without a heat mat” for banana seed germination seems like a great idea.
You’re a scientist! Thank you so much for doing this so thoroughly and sharing. I am updating incorrect assumptions I may have had about fungus gnats and nitrogen, these are really interesting results (that my brain still can’t compute :).
I’m getting ready to collect my leaf mold and make soil blocks. Have been delaying long enough and today will be the day. And will get the heat mat off to you.
1 Like
Ha ha ha! Well, it’s possible I have particularly ideal soil for indoor growing. It’s basically pure sand, after all, that’s been improved with organic matter that happened to fall on it.
And I think the reason fungus gnats aren’t in my native soil is that our summers are so hot and dry, fungus gnats just can’t survive through the summer here. I’m sure there are many ecosystems that have fungus gnats in their native soil. Hence why so much potting soil does.
As for the nitrogen, I’ve read online many instances of people using highly diluted urine once a week or so for indoor plants, and it working great, so I tried it, and yep, it seems to! My basil in particular seems really happy with that treatment.
Thank you for the compliment! I really do like making hypotheses and testing them thoroughly, and then analyzing the data to look for useful takeaways. It has been a very valuable habit and skill in my life.
1 Like
It’s a weed again. 
I could tell once it had a few more leaves that it wasn’t a banana plant, so I pulled it up, and yep, sure enough, it had grown from a root I had missed while gathering the native soil for the pot. MAN!
So, my update is that I still have no banana sprouts. 
Everything else is doing great with the native soil, though.
As a note about what I’m doing, I’m using tupperwares without holes in the bottom. This is supposed to be a big no-no, but I’ve noticed that when I have holes in the bottom, the “pot” dries out within a day, and the plants wither. I prefer to not need to water more often than once a week, because I’m lazy. Well, and also, I don’t like to waste water letting it evaporate into the air for no reason.
So I’ve been covering all of them with what amounts to a humidity dome. I started out doing that in order to keep fungus gnats from flying out and driving me crazy, but it seems to work extremely well for seed germination and helping small plants not dry out, too.
I generally remove the top only when the plants are tall enough that they’re squishing flat against the top. Then the soil dries out more quickly, but the plants have deeper roots and are more able to handle it. I still water only about once a week, which, uh . . . is sometimes not often enough, and the plants turn brittle and whine . . . but I’m adapting them to my climate! Yeah, that’s it! It’s not sheer laziness!
I don’t know if this is optimal or not (probably not), but it’s working just fine, so that’s a good thing. Right now, the main thing I have under my grow lights is sweet potato, oca, and yacon slips, along with some seed-grown baby potato plants. I’ll probably put them all out in my garden on April 15th, since we have a frost predicted on April 14th, our average last frost date is April 15th, and the weather is already in the mid-70s during the day. It’ll be in the mid-90s by early May. Yep, that’s spring here – blink, and it’s gone!
I decided to bite the bullet and buy some more seeds. This time, I focused on seeds that are very fresh, since I’m thinking that will make them easier to germinate.
I’ll link to three Ebay listings I just bought some very promising things from, in case you want to get them, too.
Musa velutina
Harvested in fall of 2022. Awesome. That means they’re as fresh as I can possibly expect right now.
Musa markkuana
Harvested in fall of 2022, and it’s a very rare species that is similar to Musa velutina, except with fruits that don’t split open at maturity! I’m excited to try this species.
Cold hardy North America banana tree (Musa balbisiana?)
I bought a clone, since the seller wasn’t offering seeds. The seller doesn’t know the species. I’m thinking it may be a Musa balbisiana. The seller told me the fruit is sweeter and tastier than supermarket bananas, and it fruits every year, and it’s growing in a zone 7b climate with no protection. Sounds like an excellent fit for my zone 7b yard. lt may work in a zone 6 yard with winter protection, too. It’s a seeded banana, which means it’ll be easy to breed. It should be arriving this week, and I have a very high hopes of this being a wonderful plant for me.
1 Like
So exciting!! I hadn’t heard of those varieties. So I wanted to add another source of seeds. I tried a few years ago to grow bananas hardy to our zone 7 from seed. I was unsuccessful getting them to germinate using the supplied instructions about moisture, warmth and light. In retrospect I wish I tried scarifying them because the seed coats are so hard, but I am not sure what that result would have been like. Anyway, I gave up on it to focus on other perennials… but I’d love to share this link in case you haven’t seen it:
https://georgiavines.com/product-category/seeds/banana-seeds/
(Their site seems to be malfunctioning at the moment, but hopefully it is working again soon)
They have quite a bit of bananas available as seed, and some as cuttings. At the time I searched for bananas hardy to zone 7 and came up with the following species. I didn’t check to see if they have any new hardy varieties now, it might be worth a look.
Ensete glaucum Snow Banana
Musa cheesmanii Cold Hardy Banana
Musa velutina Pink Velvet Banana
p.s. if you have any advice on germinating banana seeds in temperate climates or if you know if scarification helps please let me know!
EDIT: I just read your earlier posts and am caught up on your germination attempts. Please disregard this last comment about germination!
1 Like
I’m still bumbling around trying to figure out what works best for germination, but when I figure it out, I’ll definitely post here, so you guys can try it and see if it works for you!
Musa velutina is definitely one I plan to be growing! I’m really hopeful about these new seeds I’m getting of that species; I’m hoping that their being fresh will make germination much easier.
Musa cheesmanii is definitely on my list, too. I bought ten seeds of it from a very, very expensive seller last year; none of them germinated, and I suspect they were old. When I can find a source that’s fresh and a much more reasonable price, I plan to buy more.
Ensete bananas are a great option for someone who wants cold hardy banana plants, and doesn’t care about fruit! They’re bred for the edible root, so they may be a good choice for someone who wants an interesting root crop and lives in a climate that’s way too cold for most Musa bananas.
I’d be very interested in seeing how it goes if someone starts an Ensete landrace. I bet really neat stuff could come out of it.
I have limited space, and Ensete and Musa are very unlikely to cross, and I want tasty fruit, so I’m sticking with Musa. If I had unlimited space, I’m sure I’d do both.
Hi Emily, thanks for sharing all this information! I am definitely feeling more informed. I am also looking forward to learn about germinating banana seeds from your findings!
After reading your first post and learning about new varieties I decided to buy some seedless clones. I found this website wellspringgardens.com and purchased Dwarf Orinoco and Dwarf Namwa (Pisang Awak).
I am very excited to see if I can keep them alive! I’ll probably keep them indoors the first view winters to get bigger or until I can clone at least one pup from each. Do you have any advice in regards to establishing the young bananas on the edge (zone 7bish)?
I couldn’t find any California Gold (except for a very expensive option on Ebay), if you know of a source please let us know!