North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Doreen Howard" <doreenh@ticon.net>]

To wade in on the banana split, in Texas, we didn't have the luxury of
ripening on the plant due to heavy rainfall and about 12 weeks of winter
weather--nights below 50F, which bananas hate. The flowers didn't appear
until mid summer in most cases, and ripening time would come in late fall as
temperatures dropped.   We would cut the stalks off plants and then hang
them indoors from hooks in the laundry room.  We would harvest as each hand
ripened on the stalk.  The flavor was far better than grocery store bananas,
for sure, but as Claude pointed out, the flavor was probably not the maximum
attainable.  The first few hands paced their maturity, and we could consume
them.  As time went on, all the hands seemed to ripen at once, and the
neighborhood children gorged themselves on bananas.  We gave tons of bananas
to the local food pantry, too.

BTW, I checked my notes last night that I took at the Dole Fruit Company
banana terminal in 1991, and I have a quote from the manager stating that
they were off-loading all Williams bananas and some Grand Nain for Chiquita.
They were leasing dock space to Chiquita and off-loading for them.  Don, do
you think that some of the plantations were replanted with the same Williams
banana after the curly-top virus invasion?  Or do you think that this is an
improved Williams?  I am really curious, because I grew Williams in hot,
humid, disease riddled Texas and never had a problem with them.
Doreen

-----Original Message-----
From: Don Yellman <dyellman@earthlink.net>
To: nafex@yahoogroups.com <nafex@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Thursday, May 10, 2001 10:33 PM
Subject: [nafex] Banana Splits


>You know, Claude,  I can see how you could leave a stalk of bananas on
>the tree if you can control moisture.  During the rainy season in Saipan
>we received tropical deluges of three inches or more after a few dry,
>very sunny days.  This is probably what caused my bananas to split.
>That would not happen in San Diego.  After I lost a few beautiful stalks
>to the splits, I became gun-shy, and started taking them down earlier.
>You are certainly right that you have to eat bananas pretty fast to get
>through a whole stalk.  The ones that split the worst were Williams.
>The little fingerlings and a red banana that I grew didn't seem to
>suffer from it.  The worst threat to bananas out there in the Pacific is
>typhoon season.
>
>Rgds, Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
>
>
>
>
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