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RE: Collecting endless sugar from banana trees 🌴

in ecoTrain8 months ago

Good stuff! I actually discovered Ecency through this post of yours. Thanks! I had been wondering exactly the same thing as you - whether anybody collects banana nectar. I live in Thailand and grow bananas. The tradition here is when the female flowers have finished you cut off the rest (all the male flowers) because they are not needed for pollination. Leaving them on means the plant carries on producing nectar and puts less energy into making nice big bananas. But as wildlife is my main interest I have started leaving them on for all the insects, birds and especially bats, and accept that we will get smaller bananas. In our area we also have a lot of sugarpalm trees where people do collect the nectar and mostly use it to ferment into a rough but cheap alcoholic drink - perhaps you could try that!

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Wonderful you made it here due to this post! You are now using the world's most advanced decentralised social media blockchain. Which by the way, is much more than just Ecency. I personally use peakd.com to access this blockchain. There are many different interfaces which can. Ecency being one of them. Though rather basic in my opinion.

Whereabouts in Thailand are you? I met my french partner on a bus in Chaing Mai, on our way to Pai! Ten years later we have two kids, living in the south of france.

Great you are growing bananas! They are in my opinion the best fruit for so many reasons. And your experience in relation to this is invaluable! I am wondering now if my fruit would have been bigger (and edible!) if I had removed the male flowers? You are right however about them attracting wildlife. Indeed, I've seen so much more insect activity in this little courtyard since they started flowering.

Banana booze! I like the sound of that ;) Have tried making wine out of most things around here (pumpkins included) so I don't see why I shouldn't also try banana nectar. Have noted that more nectar is produced in the winter for some reason. So will give it a shot when it gets cold. Great idea!

Thanks. I live in Petchaburi, a couple of hours' drive south-west of Bangkok at the top of the peninsular. We also spent three years in Chiang Mai and I really miss the mountains but definitely not the hot season air pollution. I also spent way too long living in Bangkok.

I have grown to love just about everything about banana plants except their susceptibility to strong winds. A friend and I have discussed the possibility of making banana beer but I read that it generally isn’t that good and it would be a shame to waste the fruit!

Cheers.

Yes, I remember that Chiang Mai hot season. It was a test for someone from London!

Our banana plants are supposedly amongst the biggest in this region, perhaps in France, exclusively because of the high walls around them which protect from the crazy winds we get here. That and the fact we are next to an old church which I have found to generate a signal which is good for plants. Anything growing right next to the church booms. Further away not so good. In a word this is because of Electroculture and if you don't know what that is I recommend joining the electroculture community where a few of us are sharing our experiments and results.

This post in particular discusses the church a little and offers some ideas about how we might replicate this energy in our garden: https://peakd.com/hive-198415/@samstonehill/increase-growth-potential-by-x10-with-the-worlds-first-cosmic-cucumber-cone

Thanks, I'll have a look.