Agriculturist Isidoro T. Cabrera, who has been working to address banana pests in the CNMI, said a lot of farmers now realize the potentials of exporting the fruit to neighboring islands.
Cabrera said the islands have more than 10 varieties of bananas, and each has a potential to be a value-added agricultural product.
Northern Marianas College- Cooperative Research, Extension and Education Service, with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has come up with a handbook on growing bananas.
Written by Dr. Dilip Nandwani, research assistant Anthony Tudela and Cabrera, the “Banana Guide for the CNMI” contains information obtained through the USDA- approved project, “In-Vitro Propagation, Conservation and Field Evaluation of Banana in the Northern Mariana Islands.”
The local farmers also heard from a visiting specialist during a banana workshop at the Pacific Islands Club in March last year.
Planting and challenges
According to the NMC-CREES guide, banana can be grown easily if the climate and soil requirements are met.
Wind is the banana’s biggest enemy. Wind that blows 30-mph can break banana petioles while 60-mph wind can uproot an entire plantation.
Excessive shade can also result in poor quality fruit.
And then there are the pests, one of which is Erionota thrax, popularly known as the leaf roller.
This pest, according to Cabrera, has infested many banana plants on island.
The insect cuts and rolls the banana leaf into a cigar-shape shelter where it lays its eggs. The plants will then fail to synthesize and will produce bad fruit.
Cabrera said this pest is now being addressed biologically.
Another challenge in the CNMI is the perennial problem with irrigation.
Banana plants do best when the soil has good internal drainage and high content of organic matter. The soil should have a pH between 5.6 and 6.0.
Bananas are usually planted at the beginning of the wet season but they can be planted all year round.
The NMC-CREES banana guide identifies two ways of planting banana: holes and pits.
In hole-planting, you dig holes 10 x 10 x10 feet, then fill half the depth with compost and any rotten debris like wood ashes, compost and about 50 pounds of manure and fertilizer.
In the pit system, banana shoots are planted on the side of the pit three to five feet deep and seven feet wide.
The spacing will vary with the cultivar and soil fertility. In general, the higher the soil fertility, the greater will be the plant population density.
In the CNMI, bananas are grown under rain-fed conditions. Bananas require large amounts of water (about 4 to 6 inches a month) and are very sensitive to drought. Severe conditions result in increased time for flowering and fruiting, reduced fruit size, fruit number and crop yields.
Mulching around the base of the plant with organic matter can help a lot in conserving soil moisture.
There are four different types of banana plants — maiden sucker, sword leaf sucker, peeper and water sucker.
Sword suckers are the best choice. They are tapered with a large base and small narrow leaves.
Water suckers have broad leaves and they lack the distinctive taper of sword suckers. They usually develop from the corm of previously harvested plants.
Banana is also propagated commercially from plantlets taken from tissue culture. The advantage of this method is that the plants are uniform and free of nematodes and most diseases.
It takes one year before plants attain a sufficient size to be planted in the field.
Local varieties
There are two types of bananas — the cooking varieties that grow better under dry condition and the dessert varieties that grow better on island soil.
The local varieties of banana include long, galazan, dama, saba, Manila, tanduki, fiji, Macau or lakatan, chodan Guam, Taiwan, ice cream or blue java, brown banana, purple banana, bandito or praying hands and wild banana or musa.
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