Botanical aspect of Banana
Bananas belong to the genus Musa, of the family Musaceae and the order Scitamineae, but the botany of the cultivated forms has only relatively recently been clearly defined.
The family Musaceae includes many subfamilies or genera, covering a wide range of plants such as arrowroot, canes, ginger, grasses, lilies and palms.
The genus Musa comprises over 20 distinct species with over 300 varieties.
Amongst these are Musa and from sub-division Eumusa, from which comes the edible banana, which probably had its origins in wild species, inter alia, Musa acuminate and Musa balbisiana.
The edible bananas in Eumusa have 22, 33 or 44 chromosomes.
The basic number of chromosomes in this section is n = 11, so these cultivars are respectively diploid and tetraploid, with triploid being generally the most numerous.
The leaves and bracts are spirally arranged.
Male and female (or hermaphrodite) flowers are separated within one inflorescence; the fruit is a many seeded berry.
The Australimusa series of edible bananas is easily distinguished from Eumusa by having an erect bunch and pink juice.
Within the AA subdivision, Sucrier is the only important edible diploid acuminate type, widely cultivated and highly favored for its sweet, thin skinned fruits.
It is resistant to Panama disease but highly susceptible to leaf spot – two of the significant disease to affect bananas.
Within Eumusa, it is possible, with experience to assign a cultivar to its correct group almost at a glance, and at the turn of the millennium about 80% of the world’s cultivars are well known.
The agricultural significance of physical mutations in bananas is very great, and the ‘Dwarf Cavendish’ bananas, which is so significant in world trade is in fact a mutant of an important clone.
Botanical aspect of Banana
Monday, November 2, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Cultivars of Banana
Cultivars of Banana
From a genetic makeup that seems to be almost wholly derived from M. acuminate come the dessert bananas of world trade designated Musa (AAA) group indicated their triploid character and acuminate (AA) origin.
The cooking bananas or plantains of commerce designated Musa (AAB) group have about one third of their genetic make-up from balbisiana.
There are five major banana cultivars grown all over the world. These are Gros Michel, Lacaton, Robusta, Giant Cavendish and Dwarf Cavendish.
Gros Michel, producing bananas of uniform size, has been the leading banana cultivar in world trade for a long time.
It has an attractive color and appearance, and the fruit is long and slender.
Due to its large plant size and low planting density, it is poorer yielder than the cultivars of the Cavendish group.
It is also susceptible to Panama disease and is therefore increasingly being replaced by the members of the Cavendish group.
All cultivars of the Cavendish group are resistant to Panama disease and have fruits with blunt tips, in contrast to Gros Michel, which has a bottle-necked fruit tip.
Brazil covers large areas with Dwarf Cavendish. In India, it is called Basrai and forms the major commercial variety of banana.
Giant Cavendish or Harichal (India) is giant only when compared to “Dwarf”: it is slightly taller.
Robusta is grown extensively in the West Indies, Central and South America and Africa.
Other Cavendish cultivars are Valery and American.
Cultivars of Banana
From a genetic makeup that seems to be almost wholly derived from M. acuminate come the dessert bananas of world trade designated Musa (AAA) group indicated their triploid character and acuminate (AA) origin.
The cooking bananas or plantains of commerce designated Musa (AAB) group have about one third of their genetic make-up from balbisiana.
There are five major banana cultivars grown all over the world. These are Gros Michel, Lacaton, Robusta, Giant Cavendish and Dwarf Cavendish.
Gros Michel, producing bananas of uniform size, has been the leading banana cultivar in world trade for a long time.
It has an attractive color and appearance, and the fruit is long and slender.
Due to its large plant size and low planting density, it is poorer yielder than the cultivars of the Cavendish group.
It is also susceptible to Panama disease and is therefore increasingly being replaced by the members of the Cavendish group.
All cultivars of the Cavendish group are resistant to Panama disease and have fruits with blunt tips, in contrast to Gros Michel, which has a bottle-necked fruit tip.
Brazil covers large areas with Dwarf Cavendish. In India, it is called Basrai and forms the major commercial variety of banana.
Giant Cavendish or Harichal (India) is giant only when compared to “Dwarf”: it is slightly taller.
Robusta is grown extensively in the West Indies, Central and South America and Africa.
Other Cavendish cultivars are Valery and American.
Cultivars of Banana
Monday, September 14, 2009
Banana and plantains
Banana and plantains
Bananas and plantains (Musa spp.) are rhizomatous, giant perennial herbs cultivated throughout the tropics for their parthenocarpics, seedless fruits.
They are the fourth most important global food commodity after rice, wheat and milk in terms of gross value of production.
During 1997, their annual world production was estimated to be around 88.47 m tones.
The banana fruits are an important export from South and Central America and the West Indies to North America and Europe, with world trade amounting to nearly 20 m tones annually.
Plantains represent 33% of the world production of Musa and provide up to 25% of the daily carbohydrate intake for 72 millions Africans.
Bananas and plantains thrive in a wide range of environments between 30 degree North and South of the equator.
Bananas are chiefly eaten raw as a dessert fruit, because in the ripe state they are sweet and easily digested. Plantain fruits are unpalatable when raw and must be cooked, fried, pounded, roasted or boiled before consumption.
Expert has highlighted the apparent ambiguity in using the word “Plantain”. To many, plantain implies a cooking banana but in Spanish the word can also be used to mean dessert forms.
In Hindi too, there is no spate world to distinguish cooking starchy cultivars. Plantains are thus, referred to as cooking bananas.
There appears to be no accepted botanical distinction between starchy types, that have to be cooked and sweeter types that can be eaten raw.
Edible bananas are commonly divided into dessert bananas cooking bananas and plantains and bear bananas.
Dessert bananas are palatable when eaten raw at ripening, while other bananas are generally processed by cooking or fermentation before consumption.
The plantains are specific type of cooking banana whose remains starchy at ripening. They are characterized by the orange yellow color of the compound tepal in the flowers and the orange yellow color of the fruit pulp at ripeness.
Fruits are long and slender angular-to-pointed and unpalatable when raw.
Seaths of plantains are slightly waxy, petiole margins are incurved and petiole bases are clasping.
The lamina bases are rounded and peduncles are slightly hairy. Basal flowers are biseriate and parthenocarpics. The fruit skin is glabrous and fruit are indehiscent.
Banana and plantains
Bananas and plantains (Musa spp.) are rhizomatous, giant perennial herbs cultivated throughout the tropics for their parthenocarpics, seedless fruits.
They are the fourth most important global food commodity after rice, wheat and milk in terms of gross value of production.
During 1997, their annual world production was estimated to be around 88.47 m tones.
The banana fruits are an important export from South and Central America and the West Indies to North America and Europe, with world trade amounting to nearly 20 m tones annually.
Plantains represent 33% of the world production of Musa and provide up to 25% of the daily carbohydrate intake for 72 millions Africans.
Bananas and plantains thrive in a wide range of environments between 30 degree North and South of the equator.
Bananas are chiefly eaten raw as a dessert fruit, because in the ripe state they are sweet and easily digested. Plantain fruits are unpalatable when raw and must be cooked, fried, pounded, roasted or boiled before consumption.
Expert has highlighted the apparent ambiguity in using the word “Plantain”. To many, plantain implies a cooking banana but in Spanish the word can also be used to mean dessert forms.
In Hindi too, there is no spate world to distinguish cooking starchy cultivars. Plantains are thus, referred to as cooking bananas.
There appears to be no accepted botanical distinction between starchy types, that have to be cooked and sweeter types that can be eaten raw.
Edible bananas are commonly divided into dessert bananas cooking bananas and plantains and bear bananas.
Dessert bananas are palatable when eaten raw at ripening, while other bananas are generally processed by cooking or fermentation before consumption.
The plantains are specific type of cooking banana whose remains starchy at ripening. They are characterized by the orange yellow color of the compound tepal in the flowers and the orange yellow color of the fruit pulp at ripeness.
Fruits are long and slender angular-to-pointed and unpalatable when raw.
Seaths of plantains are slightly waxy, petiole margins are incurved and petiole bases are clasping.
The lamina bases are rounded and peduncles are slightly hairy. Basal flowers are biseriate and parthenocarpics. The fruit skin is glabrous and fruit are indehiscent.
Banana and plantains
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
History: Bananas During 1840s in Rio Negro
History: Bananas During 1840s in Rio Negro
In the mid 1840s, Thomas Young, Deputy Superintendent of the British Central American Land Company, traveled along the Rio Negro, one of many rivers that cut through the narrow coastal plain that stretches along Honduras’s Caribbean coastline.
Paddling upstream with a group of Miskito Indians, Young observed “thousands of banana tress growing spontaneously, the fruit of which is so much sought after by the natives, who come from very distant parts to Black River, to gather it.”
He noted the ease with which the plant could be cultivated and added that “the ripe fruit is highly esteemed, although it is apt to disagree with European if eaten shortly before or after taking spirits.
The green fruit is cut onto slices by the Spaniards and expose to the sun, and when rubbed, forms a kind of flour of which they are fond.
When Young visited the Rio Negro region, bananas were a novelty item in Europe and the United States, and little export oriented agricultural of any kind took place in the Caribbean lowlands of Honduras.
Most of the region’s nineteenth century exports, including mahogany, fustic (a dyewood), deer skins, sarsaparilla, and rubber, were extracts from forested ecosystems and wetlands.
As late as 1859, traveler journeying by canoe from Omoa to Puerto Corte’s described forests that extended from hillsides down to the edge of narrow sandy beaches along the coast.
Agriculture in the region can best be described as small scale monocultures and polycultures, Extensive plantings of bananas, plantains, sugar cane, and pastureland were few and geographically dispersed.
This situation started to change in the 1870s, when schooners from US ports began arriving with increasing frequency in order to purchase bananas and coconuts.
Around the same time, the Honduran national government began to embrace export oriented economic development models.
History: Bananas During 1840s in Rio Negro
In the mid 1840s, Thomas Young, Deputy Superintendent of the British Central American Land Company, traveled along the Rio Negro, one of many rivers that cut through the narrow coastal plain that stretches along Honduras’s Caribbean coastline.
Paddling upstream with a group of Miskito Indians, Young observed “thousands of banana tress growing spontaneously, the fruit of which is so much sought after by the natives, who come from very distant parts to Black River, to gather it.”
He noted the ease with which the plant could be cultivated and added that “the ripe fruit is highly esteemed, although it is apt to disagree with European if eaten shortly before or after taking spirits.
The green fruit is cut onto slices by the Spaniards and expose to the sun, and when rubbed, forms a kind of flour of which they are fond.
When Young visited the Rio Negro region, bananas were a novelty item in Europe and the United States, and little export oriented agricultural of any kind took place in the Caribbean lowlands of Honduras.
Most of the region’s nineteenth century exports, including mahogany, fustic (a dyewood), deer skins, sarsaparilla, and rubber, were extracts from forested ecosystems and wetlands.
As late as 1859, traveler journeying by canoe from Omoa to Puerto Corte’s described forests that extended from hillsides down to the edge of narrow sandy beaches along the coast.
Agriculture in the region can best be described as small scale monocultures and polycultures, Extensive plantings of bananas, plantains, sugar cane, and pastureland were few and geographically dispersed.
This situation started to change in the 1870s, when schooners from US ports began arriving with increasing frequency in order to purchase bananas and coconuts.
Around the same time, the Honduran national government began to embrace export oriented economic development models.
History: Bananas During 1840s in Rio Negro
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