Jan–MarApr–JunJul–SepOct–Dec
Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-519
Banana Plantain
Musa balbisiana
This is a wild, heavily seeded banana from eastern and south Asian forests, not a true plantain - most cooking plantains are hybrids that carry its genes, but the fruit of this species itself is rarely eaten raw because of the seed. It is harvested in stages instead: the corm as a vegetable, the inner stem in curries, the male flower cluster as a curry ingredient, and the ripe fruit boiled, baked, fried or roasted - four harvests from one plant. Frost kills the leaves and hard cold kills the top growth to the ground, but where the soil itself does not freeze it regrows from the underground corm; further north it is grown as a replanted annual or kept under cover.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 8–11
- Soil
- Sand · Silt · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moderate · Moist
Vertical layer
Sub-Canopy- Soil pH
- 4.5–7.5
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 7–18 ft
- Mature spread
- 10 ft
- Plant spacing
- 12–24 ft
- Root type
- Rhizome
- Spread pattern
- Root
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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