William Ting

Banana - How many times can a banana tree bear fruit?

I decided to blog about banana after I heard two people asking me the same question within a day: How many times can a banana tree bear fruits? Then I realise that for things I have taken for granted is news to many. I came from a farming background in Sarikei. So, you can ask me anything about farming and I have a little knowledge: pepper cultivation, vegie, fruits, rubber, animals, etc.
The picture below shows a banana tree. You see that banana tree has no branches. The trunk and leaves are light and have honey comb structure. In fact, I understand that engineers have adopted the structure of the banana leave for aeroplane chasis design.

When a tree reaches maturity, a bunch of banana will appear from the top of the tree like the picture below. haha... you know what I mean!

When a bunch of fruit reach maturity, the tree is first cut down in order to reach the bunch of fruit. In fact, the trunk is so soft that I use a bread knife to cut! Depending on variety, the tree can grown from 4 feet to some 20 feet. Therefore, a banana tree can bear fruit only once. This is because the bunch of fruit with strong stem is actually the "stem" of the banana tree. This stem is wrapped around by its own leaves which have a very long stem. I am not an expert on the terminology used.

This is how the banana tree trunk looks like. The layered looking ring are actually leave stem! The core is the actual stem which leads to the bunch of fruit.

As a general rule, they are cut down when the fruits are still green but mature. This can be identified quite easily when the last three leaves started to dry off! Or for some species, you have to look at the edges of the fruit which started to "round off".
The picture below is what I called "rice" banana - small rice shape. As the fruit becomes more ripe, the skin becomes thinner making it difficult to peel.

Below is the so called "Sarawak Banana". It is know to be more "cooling". So don't eat too much in one go! Fragrant and sweet! Assorted banana - red banana, rice banana, berangan. They are all very nice to eat!
So another question which my colleague asked, how come I saw banana tree seem to bear fruit all the time?

Ok, when a banana sucker (baby banana tree) is first planted, suckers will begin to appear around the tree after a couple of months. As a general rule, too many suckers will spoil the quality of the fruit (smaller fruit). Therefore, thin sucker (male) are removed and only about 2-3 suckers are normally allowed to grow. Sucker will reach maturity in about 9 months. I am not sure how long it takes the fruit to ripe - probably about 3-4 months.

Therefore, if you are not observance, you thought that the same tree keeps bearing fruit!

Ok, if there are any more question from anyone, please post it in the chatter box. I will update this blog to answer them.

All the above fruits are from Eric's Organic Farm in Sibu. He travels back to Sibu almost every week to ensure that everything is ok. He has about 80 acres of fruit garden. They are now staring to produce fruit. Call him (+6085 660680/+60198843683) if you want to buy true organic fruit. At the moment he is selling them at a very special price of only RM4/kg - not even enough to cover his petrol! He also has dragon fruit, lemon, papaya, sour sop which is actually sweet, etc.