When a banana is flowering do the pups provide any support to the mother plant?

No they take nourishment from the mother plant. I always remove the pups so that the mother will get all the nourishment and fruit sooner.

However, if you wish to grow another banana, you MUST choose and save a pup, to be your next banana plant. The pup you save should be a sword pub (shape of a sword with pointed leaves) not a pub having rounded leave tips. - Millet (1,336-)

For maximum yield (most number of bananas as well as largest individual fruit per stalk), try the commercial method -- one stalk in fruit (or about to), a second one about half-grown, and a third one still in the leafless "sword" stage. Remove everything else. When the bunch is harvested, cut down the mother stalk and chop it up for mulch with your machete. Then you let the next sword sucker to come up replace the original trunk. My family grew a lot of bananas outdoors in S. Fla. during my growing-up years (21 varieties at one point), and that method dramatically improves the yield. Not only will you get big bunches of big bananas, you also make 3 such stalks per plant, per year.
Malcolm

Thanks--I am hopeing to get some blooms this summer--I had 3 large inground stalks that made it thru the winter--they lost all their leaves, but put out new growth without being cut back.

My Raji Puri is in a container and growing strong without any loss over winter.

Fertilizers such as 6-6-6, 10-10-10, or 12-12-12 can be used for regular maintenance. For optimum flowering and fruiting, use a fertilizer higher in potassium, such as 6-2-12 or 9-3-27. Be sure the fertilizers are complete with all minor elements. Bananas are most in need of higher potassium levels applied early after planting and again about 3 months later. - Millet (1,336-)

Ok, I am a little slow but I get the pup removal part. It’s what to do after the pup is removed that I am not clear about. Do you put the pups in a container and plant later? Do you just replant a couple of feet from mom or do you replant in another location? It seems that if you replant the pup near mom that it will continue to compete for food although not joined at the hip.

Generally, unless you really want another plant, you destroy the extra pups. That sounds like cruelty to dogs -- sorry. The offshoots are most often referred to as "suckers."

If you want more than one banana, you can either buy a new variety to expand your collection, or you can separate the suckers. There are as many as four different kinds of suckers, but the most common are "sword suckers" bearing narrow sword like leaves, and "water suckers" which are more superficial in origin, and have wide leaves. Be sure to only use a sword sucker when starting a new plant. In order to obtain a sucker, carefully dig down around the sucker selected for separation. Make sure the sucker already has good, healthy roots. Clear the soil back as close as possible to the main rhizome and, using a clean sharp knife, shovel or axe, cut the sucker free of the main rhizome. Try not to break or pull off roots on the detached sucker. A sucker 1-ft. tall with a leaf or two is ideal. Clean the cut surface and dust with a powdered fungicide, or a bit of rooting hormone with fungicide already in it. Rest the plant in shade for a day to allow the cut surface to dry and heal before replanting. This new sucker is ready to plant where you wish. The success rate of this procedure is very high. Plant the new banana far enough away from the mother plant so as not to compete for light, space, moisture or nutritions. Good luck. - Millet (1,333-)

What's the diff in growing sword or water pups?
I think all my pups were water pups. I don't remember the leaves being pointy. Won't any pup grow & flower?

Sword suckers grow like elongated cone-shaped things with no real leaves (just a few curly bracts) for the first month or more after emerging from the ground. By the time they make their first leaf, they may be several feet tall. Water suckers tend to be thinner from the start, and they make broad (albeit small) leaves while still very young -- within a couple weeks of emerging from the ground. You can use either, and ultimately, you'll get a good tree from a water sucker. But for the first generation, a sword sucker will give you a much stronger, faster-growing tree, which will ultimately produce a larger bunch of larger bananas, in less time, than would a water sucker.

Thank you for the great explanations!