In agriculture class today my students and I planted six new banana plants in the cacao plot. Essentially, these will grow to provide more banana fruit but also to provide shade for the growing cacao trees, whilst also diversifying the garden.

One of these new banana plant´s suckers  was cut from an existing banana plant, disinfected with agricultural cal and planted in a new spot. In this way we are propagating new bananas in our existing system of the three generations idea.

This idea is based on a traditional approach to managing banana plants. Each location should have a mature banana plant with fruit – the grandmother –  another mature plant growing to replace the grandmother once the fruit has been harvested –  the mother –  and a small little banana sucker –  the daughter – that will in turn replace the mother. Excess suckers should be removed and planted elsewhere to spread the banana plantation and produce more fruit.

Keeping bananas to this form of growth ensures more efficient management.