A banana for the desert

Adaptation Projects
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81

I thought about waiting to take them out, but I’ve noticed that banana plants seem to be really easy to overwater, and I was concerned that I would kill them if I kept them in a growing space with a small amount of soil, they would either get overwatered or underwatered, and die. Nestled in among my other crops with a whole lot of mulch, they seemed more likely to get the medium moisture they require.

Since it’s June 1st and well past risk of frost, I figured I’d go with what seemed like the best bet. If I had gotten germination two months earlier, I probably would have kept them indoors until they were a lot larger (and all risk of frost was past).

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Hi Emily

You have picked a really interesting project. I work on breeding Canna as a crop, and it is a fairly close relative of Musa. I am in the subtropics, so my work is a lot easier in some ways, but being stuck behind Australias quarantine restrictions means I could only dream of working with all those amazing banana species.

My research and experience confirms that pollen for this whole side of the plant family tree is almost impossible to store for any useful length of time. Banana breeding is limited by this factor too. I’m worried you may have a hard time getting two or more species to mature at the same time to allow crossing, given your challenging conditions. Even if you get species going and flowering, getting the timing lined up could be the trickiest part (I used up two years trying to coordinate the Cannas I needed to cross). Have you considered seeking out a collaborator who lives in a state where making the initial hybrids might be easier? Then you would be starting with high enough grex diversity to have more of a fighting chance.

The other thing I would suggest is to consider what agricultural ecosystem role you want the banana to serve in your system. Someone could probably select mangos to produce in Alaska if they lived for 1000 years, or they could start with something that is already most of the way adapted for local conditions. Enthusiasm is essential, but will only keep going if you get results sooner or later.

One alternative would be to consider breeding fruiting bromeliads. Pineapple isn’t the only species with edible fruit, though it could contribute superior genetics. There are two fairly dry hardy Bromelia species, and pretty much the whole family can be used to make fertile hybrids. Some are quite cold/dry hardy as well like Puya and Dyckia. Agave also comes to mind as an option nobody is breeding (for syrup production). Apparently Agave pollen can be stored long term too (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228494439_Simple_methods_for_in_vitro_pollen_germination_and_pollen_preservation_of_selected_species_of_the_genus_Agave)

If I was you, I would get as many potentially interesting species you might consider breeding into the ground in your growing space asap to assess how they like your conditions. Microclimate and variations in soil are huge factors as to what will grow well. Can you access banana suckers of any the species you are considering just to gauge their performance? (Or are you sticking to seed to reduce disease risk?). You might discover you have superb soil for musk melons or something else you haven’t seriously considered yet. Or, if you are genuinely obsessed with Musa this kind of field trial might inspire you to relocate to a location where they will grow without too many hassles.

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Honestly, it’s hard to say why bananas call to me so much. I really don’t know! I love the fruit, of course, but that’s not the main reason I want to do it. The main reason is that it feels like something that is worth doing that I am the right person to do. It’s hard to explain any more than that!

I’m totally on board with working with collaborators, and I’ll take any Musa germplasm anyone offers me. :smiley: The more people involved, the faster the project will go, and the more germplasm I have, the better the chances that I’ll get two plants flowering at the same time and thereby be able to cross them!

Yep, I know banana pollen can’t be stored very well, and it’s hard to get plants to flower at the same time. The seeds are tricky to germinate, too. There are tons of reasons why this project is a challenge. All of those are things I’m hoping to ameliorate by growing absolutely anything Musa that comes my way, seeing what the plants offer me, and sharing anything awesome that turns up.

(Chuckles.) Don’t worry, bananas are just one of many plant families I’m growing. I’m the seed steward for pepo squashes this year because I’m pretty enthusiastic about them, too. Bananas are the crop I feel most passionate about that I think will be the biggest challenge; there are others that I’m very passionate about (like apples) that I expect to be very easy because they do very well here.

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84

One possibility you shouldnt over look is the potential for intergeneric crosses. Species like canna which flower more continuously could be worth trying as a partner with a sporadic flowerer like Musa. Burbank proved that there is no way to know if a hybrid is possible other than by trying it out. Chromosome number sometimes points you in the right direction but it also often misleads. I’m hoping to do Canna intergeneric crosses in coming years.

Intergeneric hybrids among the Zingiberaceae/Costaceae/Musaceae/Cannaceae are rare because nobody has really tried them and probably because pollination mechanisms are very specialised. I found one report on a Zingiberaceae intergeneric hybrid which worked without any problems. You just need to get around the pollen being pretty much impossible to store (though express postage within the continental USA might open some avenues to source pollen from warmer climates when you get anything flowering).

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85

Hmm. That is an interesting thought. I hadn’t considered the possibility of very wide crosses. It’s certainly worth considering.

Let me check on the number of chromosomes.

Let’s see . . . canna has 18 pairs. (Whistles.) That’s a lot more than bananas.

Eumusa bananas have 11 pairs of chromosomes. Callimusa bananas have 10.

Eumusa bananas can cross with each other, and Callimusa bananas can cross with each other. Eumusa bananas don’t seem to be able to cross with Callimusa bananas. Source:

Since the chromosome pairs wouldn’t line up, even if a banana was tetraploid (which would give it either 22 or 20 pairs), it doesn’t seem very likely a cross between them would work. Especially since they’re in the same order (Zingiberales), but not the same family (Cannaceae and Musaceae). I’ve never heard of an interfamilial cross working – but of course, I’m not super informed on wide crosses, so if you know of some that have worked, I’d love to hear about it!

Meanwhile, cannas are pretty and edible, and there are some that grow well in zone 7. So I’d be happy to grow them, and if they flower at the same time as bananas, I’d be happy to give it a try!

If any offspring resulted, the chances on them being sterile are quite high, but that wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, given that bananas and cannas are both easy to clone. If a cross resulted in viable offspring that was interesting for some reason, it could always be propagated in order to share it.

Very interesting idea! I like the way your mind works. It’s an intriguing idea that would never have occurred to me.

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86

Oh! Now here’s something interesting!

Ensete, a different banana genus, has 18 chromosome pairs!

That might have a good chance of crossing with cannas! And it’s more cold hardy than the Musa genus, too!

Maybe it might be worth trying some Ensete bananas, after all. I was thinking I’d stick purely with Musa (because Ensete has meh fruit, and it won’t cross with Musa), but there’s really no reason I can’t do both.

Perhaps I should stop snubbing Ensete, and let them show me if they’ll do things that please me.

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Chromosome number should never put you off attempting a cross. Classical taxonomy levels like genus/family are also pretty meaningless.

Interfamily crosses are known- a comparable one to the close banana families here among some sister monocots-
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/pbr.13058

And a crazy dicot/monocot one here (might be fake since it is chinese)-

If you got a single lonely banana flowering you could dump pollen from everything in your neighbourhood on it and see what happens. Great minds think alike when it comes to worthwhile genera to cross with canna :smiley:

I suspect rare wide crosses are responsible for the origin of deep divisions in the family tree and where new orders and families could potentially arise (hopefully with the help of humans like you and me rather than needing a comet to hit the planet to shake things up).

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I used to think species classifications were inviolate, because of what I learned about genetics in high school.

Carol Deppe’s Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties opened my eyes to the possibilities of wide crosses, though, and I eventually realized that our human classification system of “what can breed with what” is probably really ad hoc and arbitrary and not at all gospel.

That’s very exciting to hear, that interfamily crosses are possible and well documented. And of course, even though people have tried Eumusa / Callimusa, Musa / Ensete, and Musa basjoo / any other Musa crosses before and always (to my knowledge) failed, that wouldn’t stop me from trying it if those were the plants I had available. Because I mean, there’s a big giant, “Why not?” Especially since I’m planning to work with wild species that are not often worked with as a path to edible breeding. (Most people are fixated on the idea that bananas have to be seedless. I’ve decided I’d rather focus on seeded bananas with seeds that are no big deal to eat. The difficulties of breeding go way down when you’re happy to have fertile offspring. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: )

You know, that’s a super interesting point. If I have a solo flowering banana plant, why not gather pollen from any other edible plant in the area and paintbrush it on? Worst that can happen is that I waste some time. Best that can happen is that I get something really weird I can play around with to try to figure out what it’s good for later.

I loved Carol Deppe’s point in that book that, many times, great plant breeding projects can be right in front of your eyes – you don’t have to plan them; you can simply keep your eyes and mind open, noticing different things and pondering ideas to use it in a new way. Sometimes all you need is a little observation, opportunism, and experimentation.

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89

Those are good points. I learned something useful, thanks.

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Final suggestion for Emily.
If you have limited grow out space, and a far from ideal climate for Musa, you could consider setting up a small tissue culture lab and conducting somatic fusion to produce hybrids of any wild bananas you can get your hands on (often tissue culture grows well from germinating seeds). Could be the easiest way to combine the most frost tolerant species with fruiting types.

Here is a review on the technique- Protoplast Fusion in Banana (Musa spp.): Comparison of Chemical (PEG: Polyethylene Glycol) and Electrical Procedure | SpringerLink
Should be on sci-hub if you want to check out the whole paper.

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91

Wow, that’s a strategy I wouldn’t have thought of!

It’s definitely way beyond me right now, but it’s a useful thing to keep in mind for the future. Who knows what resources and expertise I may have later on down the line? :smiley:

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92

Given Joseph’s advice about (not) transplanting over in this thread, and the fact that I’d rather direct seed anyway, I’m going to try direct sowing the rest of my banana seeds that I currently have into deep swales, covered only very lightly by dirt. I’ll try watering them lightly daily until I see sprouts, and then try watering them every other day afterwards.

Really, the only reasons I wanted to germinate seeds indoors were a) so that I could learn what the seedlings look like, so I won’t mistake them for weeds when I see them outside, and b) so I could make sure the seeds are viable, and get an approximate timeframe of how long it takes them to germinate. Both goals have been accomplished now, so direct seeding all the rest would be sensible.

I’ll put cabbage and radish seeds in between the bananas. If the bananas don’t sprout, I’ll still get something; if they do, I expect brassicas to make excellent companion plants for them.

The banana sprouts I put outside didn’t survive. However, this may have been due to the mulch. I have now learned that any kind of mulch on top of my soil seems to invite heavy pill bug colonies to move in and eat all the germinating seeds and new sprouts.

When I mulched my bean bed, I got no germination at all for three attempts in a row, despite planting hundreds of seeds. When I pulled off the mulch and had bare soil for my fourth attempt this year, I got a really high germination rate. The same thing has happened with all the squash seeds I’ve planted. And all the strawberry and carrot and tomato and pepper and radish and brassica seeds. Lesson thoroughly learned.

Rather than relying on mulch to keep in moisture in order to germinate seeds, I’m going to dig really deep swales instead. Swales don’t seem to result in pill bugs. I don’t seem to get snails in them, either. I will add in mulch later, when the plants are old enough and large enough to have leaves well off the ground, so the soil will stay moister and the plants will be fine when the pill bugs and snails move in. The pill bugs and snails are welcome to eat any weed seeds that attempt to germinate.

Swales are really hard work (especially given how many enormous rocks we have in our sand, I mean soil), but I think they will be ultimately worth it. Three other benefits are that they automatically result in excellent walkways (the berms), they force me to let the plants have at least a foot of space between rows, and they make the garden look very pretty.

Those are my current thoughts, and that’s what I’m currently planning to do.

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For me at least, how you treat seed depends on how replaceable it is. When I first buy seed from elsewhere it is usually in small numbers, expensive, and I cannot safely assume it will be available for sale forever. That makes it a lot more precious to me. It also usually means the seed is somewhat old and relatively low in viability, and that the embryos that emerge will be weaker than is normal for the species.
That is why I normally start seed that I buy in pots, then transplant (and irrigate/weed/protect etc depending on how important it is to get it to maturity). Once I get the first generation completed I usually have vastly larger quantities of seed which is much more vigorous, meaning that direct sowing experiments can begin.
Greenhouse set ups for germinating seeds in pots have a lot of possible variables to tweak. A set of controlled conditions that work beautifully for orchids might fail spectacularly for superficially similar plants like bromeliads. To begin it can be a bit of a chicken and egg game, tweaking soil mixes, watering, lighting, humidity etc until you get a feel for the conditions the plant you are trying to grow actually enjoys. When you get to know a particular species you can often just run your hand through a new soil mix or walk into a greenhouse and “know” if the species will accept it, in a way that no amount of measuring and describing can convey.
All this is a round about way of me trying to suggest that direct sowing banana seed in the desert is probably a waste of resources. If you are having trouble getting controlled conditions right I would personally buy a larger batch of seed of any variety that at least germinated and is relatively affordable. Then try varying your soil mix, watering, germination conditions, lighting- everything really- and observe how the seeds respond until you can reliably get things past the fragile stage.
The other possibility is that you have bitten off a project which is impractical to chew. You never really know what might work unless you try, but once you get initial feed back on a project it often makes sense to discontinue it if the results are too discouraging. You might even be able to send your seed collection to someone with more suitable conditions- I think the basic idea of the project is wonderful, I just suspect you are in the wrong location for it to be rewarding.
All this of course is just the ramblings of an interested stranger on the internet, so take it or leave it. As long as you are having fun and your enthusiasm isn’t crushed by hitting too many dead ends, then keep going for it. My gut feeling is that there is a different bonkers-bananas breeding project waiting for you that you haven’t even considered yet.

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I’m actually in the ideal location to do this. No humidity in the air is probably not a big deal, and that’s the only real issue I can’t compensate for.

Here’s the thing about bananas in the desert: they love Arizona.

Which is close to me and has almost the exact same climate. The main difference is that their summers are a little bit hotter and their winters are a fair amount warmer.

Learning that was what gave me the impetus to start trying this in the first place. If bananas can do well in Arizona, they can do well in Utah, too. The biggest issue is my temperatures in winter. I have the ideal soil for bananas (they love sand), and as for their high water preferences, deep mulch and drip irrigation work well in Arizona, so they’ll work well here, too.

My Dwarf Namwah last year did very well and seemed very happy. It overwintered just fine, too. The only reason it died this year was that I way overwatered it in spring, before it was warm enough for it to need any irrigation at all, which was stupid. I know that kills bananas. I’ve made that mistake before.

I also pulled off the mulch a few weeks too early and let the tender new growth immediately get exposed to frost it wasn’t expecting because it had been covered in mulch. That was almost as stupid. I now know not to bungle those simple things. The garden was fine. The gardener was overeager. :wink: I think they’ll do a lot better if I treat them like all my other plants: give them a nice space, water them once a week, pull out any bindweed that springs up around them, and then leave them alone.

With round one of seed purchasing, I bought expensive seeds that may have been old. Bleh. Didn’t work out well. With round two of seed purchasing, I bought cheap fresh seeds from people in similar growing zones. I have about 100 Musa markuanna and 100 Musa velutina seeds from Ebay sellers who harvested them fresh in the fall of 2022, and who have more in stock, so I can buy more if I want to. They cost about 5-6 cents per seed.

I am planning to try to get my hands on My Jewel and Winter Banana scions, and graft them onto an apple tree I have all ready for that purpose. Then I’ll start breeding banana-flavored apples. Because the idea intensely amuses me. (Grin!) That’s a separate project that is not a substitute, just a funny idea that makes me giggle. Apples do great here, so it should be pretty easy.

I’d love more bonkers ideas for banana projects. I’m happy to try everything! Toss suggestions my way! :smiley:

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You are definitely on the ball with this project. Those cheaper/more vigorous seed sound like just the right resource to at least try direct sowing. But never put all your eggs/seeds in the same basket/hole. Ten seeds will usually tell you about the same amount as a thousand, and direct sowing perennials in my experience varies wildly in success from year to year since it only takes conditions being a little bit wrong for a short period of time to cripple tiny plants. Whoever said “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of madness” obviously wasn’t working with biological or ecological systems.

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96

(Laugh.) Good point with the quote.

I’m starting to come to the conclusion that cheap seeds are usually better than expensive seeds, at least when it comes to unusual plants. Why? Because cheap seeds get bought more quickly, which means they tend to be fresh. I’ve gone right off the idea of buying super expensive seeds from specialty sellers. Nope! Sticking with cheap.

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A quick update, for anyone who’s interested!

As a general principle, my gardening plan is to try every genus, species, or variety I’m interested in once.

If something fails the first year, I’ll evaluate whether I want to try it again the next year. (If I suspect it was due to a mistake of mine that I’ve learned from, this is likely to be the case.)

If it fails thoroughly a second year, without even a minor sign of success, most likely I won’t bother trying it again.

If I get some mild signs of success the first or second time, I will evaluate whether I care enough about the project to keep growing it, with the understanding that it may be a slow road to adapt it to grow easily.

So far, I’ve seen some encouraging signs with bananas. Only minor successes, but those are enough to tell me this project can succeed: I simply need to be patient, and expect progress to be slow.

Because I think I should expect this project to move forward slowly, at least until I have a bunch of collaborators to swap promising seeds with (hint hint! :innocent:), I’m putting a few guidelines in place.

  • Only cheap seeds. If this is a marathon, not a sprint, “very cheap” is essential.

  • Only fresh seeds. Two years old, max, and harvested within the last year is far better. I’ve tried enough several-years-old seeds to determine that they’re probably always going to offer no germination.

  • No more Musa basjoo. It offers nothing I want (it’s sterile, untasty, and tall), so I really should stop wasting my time and money trying to grow it. A consolation prize is no prize at all.

  • “Leave your bananas alone, stupid! They grow better when you don’t fuss at them!”

In case you’re curious, here are the minor successes I’ve had so far:

  • I’ve successfully germinated three banana seeds. Three seeds out of ten is an excellent germination rate for bananas, (which often only have a germination rate of 5-10%). I took them outside when they were tiny and they got eaten by roly polies, so now I’ve learned that if I want to direct sow, the very top of the soil has to be dry by nightfall. (I think this is true of all species – my beans and peas got eaten by roly polies, too.)

  • Dwarf Namwah is perfect for my garden. It’s the third most cold hardy cultivar, it’s the first most drought tolerant, and it’s even partly fertile! It’s seedless when unpollinated, and capable of making a few viable seeds when it’s pollinated. Equally crucially, the fruit is consistently reported to taste good: not amazing, but good, which is sufficient when it has so many other merits.

  • I have two other banana plants of different varieties that are probably alive. Not thriving: the tops are dead, but that’s not necessarily a problem. That’s common for months after having been transplanted. They spend a long time working on roots before regrowing the tops. Just in case, I dug up one of them to check, and I saw nice roots in the process of forming, so I carefully replanted it, and I’m now exercising a policy of “leave the bananas alone, stupid!”

The next few baby steps I’d like to take:

  • I’ll start the rest of my banana seeds in October. I’ll let them grow them indoors for seven months, and I’ll see what they do.

  • I need to get a new Dwarf Namwah because I killed mine by checking on it and fussing with it far too often. Lesson-not-to-be-a-helicopter-parent-gardener finally learned.

  • I’m going to continue keeping an eye open for anything Musa that I can buy for very cheap, or get in trades.

  • I’ve also decided to do the same with Ensete. It’s entirely possible Ensete is a better genus for me for some reason, so I ought to let it show me what it can do.

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98

I think you have your head screwed on right for this ambitious project. The more I think about it, banana is in many ways a semi-succulent which might have some potential for adaptation to seasonally dry conditions without really hard freezes. Getting the generations cycling is always the biggest challenge, especially for perennial parent species. I still think a collaborator to help get the first crosses going who is under somewhat easier conditions might make all the difference. If you were starting with fresh hybrid seed your chances of finding something vigorous would increase a lot. Are there any exotic plant collecting societies in the US who could be a source of such plant nuts? I used to circulate in cacti/succulent collecting circles in Australia so I know this particular species of weirdo is always out there somewhere.

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I would love to have a collaborator, or hundreds of them. The more, the better! A diversity of personalities, ideas, and ecosystems is bound to lead to much more rapid progress. Not to mention there are tons of people out there who have more experience and are better-educated in this subject.

This is the forum where banana geeks seem to hang out online:

And I want to join that forum, badly, but it won’t let me. I’ve tried about seven times. I’ve used different browsers and different computers. I’ve sent a message to the support people to beg them to fix it so I can register. I’ve done that two or three times, in fact. I’ve gotten no responses. :sob: There’s obviously some kind of technical error. I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t even know if the people in charge of the forum are aware.

I completely agree that collaborators would be awesome. Do you have any suggestions about where to find some?

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Cacti collecting people are generally pretty welcoming in my experience. Orchid collectors are much more cliquey and suspicious of new people (in my very limited experience). Rare fruit people are a pretty mixed bunch (it is harder to steal fruit trees in pots, but easier to damage trees that take years to grow). I get the impression there is a thriving rare fruit community in Florida- maybe there are regional groups to try joining? Though the internet is kind of eroding those small local groups. Just be patient- finding the right collaborators takes patience just like making the crucial cross that changes everything.