Citrus Growers Forum

Skeeter · Posted: Sat 03 Nov, 2007 9:22 pm

Joe, I remember a while back you said something about the banana leaves during cold and the fact that it is the sun that causes the damage. Could you give us those details again.

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Skeet

BabyBlue11371 · Posted: Sun 04 Nov, 2007 10:48 pm

Well.. I was hoping to have the lime sulfur as a back up if my mix didn't work..
Friday I made my way to the nursery early.. and found the reason I haven't been able to catch them during "business hrs".. the place was pretty much gutted by the flood!!! They had, I think he said, 4 ft of water in the business.. they have NOTHING on shelves!!! heck.. not even any shelves right now.. any other place local supplies plants but nothing else.. So probably the nearest place to get lime sulfur is about 90 miles..
They will not be stocking the store till spring.. for now they are trying to rebuild..
So far.. so good on my little mix..
Wish me luck..
Gina *BabyBlue*

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bencelest · Posted: Tue 06 Nov, 2007 12:48 pm

This pic is a duplicate that I post in another thread but I can't help it if I am so proud with my bananas.
From the inside looking out.
When I looked outside the window from my kitchen this is what I see. A tropical scenery.
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buzzwinder · Posted: Wed 07 Nov, 2007 12:31 am

I recognized the pic right away from Bananas.org, That truly is a Great View, congrats on your nanners they look very happy.

Bill

JoeReal · Posted: Wed 07 Nov, 2007 1:08 am

Skeeter wrote:

Joe, I remember a while back you said something about the banana leaves during cold and the fact that it is the sun that causes the damage. Could you give us those details again.

Skeet, the details are scattered here:

link

both light and temperature play together. If you have lower temperature, use less intense light. If you use intense light but air temperature is low (lower than 40 deg F), chilling injury could occur instead of growth. At temperature greater than 70 deg F, light instensity can be increased as much as you can afford. For citruses I think temperature between 55 deg F to 70 deg F should one adjust proper lighting to go hand in hand. If light is over than what is needed, it ill be wasted or cause injury in the form of burnt, and for lack of it will not ranslate into growth, just to balance out respiration.

link

the home depot frost blanket were meant to protect water tanks or big outdoor pipes. But of course we can use it any way we like and good to use when you have higher risk of freeze injury.

It is quite different for our marginally freezing zones, and for that I purchased the sunscreen patio shade cover from Home Depot to be installed over my bananas. The 6 ft x 20 ft roll is $30. This patio cover blocks 75% of the sunlight, mildew resistant, and guaranteed to last 15 years. We seldom go below 22 deg F, so frost protection over the top should be enough. Counter-intuitive that it blocks the sun, so you might say. Actually, that is my intent of shading out partially the sun during winter. It is not only the freezing injury from frosts that could damage tropicals like bananas, it is the chilling injury.

Chilling injury comes about when you have a lot of sunshine in very chilly air temperature, something above freezing to 45 deg F. In this case, banana leaves will suffer tremendous damage, even much more than frosts at times due to the combined effect of sunlight and chilly air. What happens is that the Choloroplasts gets fired up or electrons gets excited from the bombardment of sunlight, but the rest of the photosynthetic team is asleep due to low metabolic activities caused by low temperature. With the captured energy nowhere to go, it creates free radicals that ran rampant in the leaf tissues and damage a lot of cells, the end results are fried banana leaves.

When shading the bananas out during the winter sunshine, I hope to preserve their leaves as long as it doesn't go below 24 deg F this winter, I should be okay, and no need to build a greenhouse either, and hope to get away with this.

link
Two major types of injuries can be caused by low temperatures in tropical and subtropical plants.

One such direct physical damages are due to the formation of the ice crystals that ruptures the plant tissues. We know that ice crystals can damage the cells nucleus and cell walls and the integrity of the cells.

Another is the chilling injury caused by photo-oxidation. When the metabolic processes are slowed down by low temperature in the presence of sunlight, chilling injury happens. As the sunlight hits the cholorplasts and excite the electrons, the receiver are simply asleep due to low temperatures or metabolically inactive. With the excited electrons nowhere to go, it causes damages to surrounding tissues. It is like having a hot torch around with no one to pass through down the assembly line of photosynthesis, so it burns anything around it. This is what we call chilling injury induced together by presence of light and low temperature. It is more indirect than the damages done by ice crystals physically damaging plant tissues.

Now back to dehydration. My context here is only partial dehydration, not to the point of permanent wilting point or killing off the plants. I think partial dehydration is not the cause of major damages to the citruses during a freezing event. In fact dehydration should help plants tide over freezing temperature. How? Simple physical chemistry. What happens during dehydration? Solutes in the tissues gets more concentrated, and the higher the solutes, the lower is the freezing point of the tissues which would help the plants tide over some marginal cases. A very old evolutionary mechanism used by cold hardy plants that survive freezing temperatures compared to water. They have higher solute contents. Remember that we are talking about survival here, and not growing when conditions are freezing. I mean to imply only short term survival. When long term conditions are involved, that would be a different matter. Now the plant has to deal with availability of water. The very reason why the mechanism for drought tolerance and freeze tolerance are the same, it is coping up with the availability of liquid water.

bencelest · Posted: Wed 07 Nov, 2007 3:35 am

"We seldom go below 22 deg F, so frost protection over the top should be enough. Counter-intuitive that it blocks the sun, so you might say. Actually, that is my intent of shading out partially the sun during winter. It is not only the freezing injury from frosts that could damage tropicals like bananas, it is the chilling injury. "

Joe, with the statement above sun screen protection installed above your citrus and bananas will protect them in our area?
If that is the case, I might wrap them also around the plant if that will help.

Benny

bencelest · Posted: Wed 07 Nov, 2007 3:39 am

Thanks, Bill. All of them are dwarf so at 6 feet more or less I expect some blooms. That will be the day I will be completely happy.

Skeeter · Posted: Wed 07 Nov, 2007 6:30 pm

Thanks Joe-- That is just what I needed to know. I think I need to shade my inground bananas for the next few days-- we are suppose to get down to 40. I will move my potted bananas to my front porch--it doesn't get sun until mid morning so it should be above 50 by then.

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Skeet

Patty_in_wisc · Posted: Fri 16 Nov, 2007 8:16 pm

I can't wait to plant my nannas inground again! I dug the 2 IC up & one is in a 5 gal bucket & other (12 1/2ft tall) is on floor at west wall sleeping with most dirt off rootball. I cut all but top 3 leaves off. I got them in June '05 when they were 2 inches tall so this is second winter in sunroom. I will be sooooo happy to see them fruit next summer (fingers crossed).
I think I will pot up the big dormant one in March to give it a head start in waking up before it goes back in ground.
What will neighbors think when they see a huge nanna tree growing in yard LOL. They should get maybe 20 ft tall?

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Patty
I drink wine to make other people more interesting Wink

JoeReal · Posted: Fri 16 Nov, 2007 9:31 pm

It's been a long time Patty! glad to hear from you again!

Patty_in_wisc · Posted: Sat 17 Nov, 2007 6:02 am

Thanks Joe,
I have been on here occasionally to read -- esp YOUR posts, but too tired to post anything. I also have pretty much ignored a lot of plants this summer - except for watering & ferts, & they all did fine. No ripe fruits yet, but I'm hopeful.
I worked too hard this summer. Shocked

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Patty
I drink wine to make other people more interesting Wink

bencelest · Posted: Sat 17 Nov, 2007 12:27 pm

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rhodomel · Joined: 09 Nov 2006 Posts: 3 Location: Floral wine maker

Joe's Dwarf Brazilian is said to be even cold hardier than the California Gold based on the cold blast in California early this year. I saw Joe's post in bananas,org forum

bencelest · Posted: Mon 19 Nov, 2007 12:08 pm

That's nice to know. I will find that out soon.
I just cut the fruit of my CG leaving a lone pup as its replacement.
Will post pic soon.

bencelest · Posted: Mon 19 Nov, 2007 9:09 pm

And here she is:

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And here's the mom:

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And the P-stem that was left. On the right side is another CG that grew that high but no sister yet coming up. It's planted on the ground.

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