A banana grows slowly through cool months.
As recorded: A banana grows slowly through months that average below about 16 C (60 F) and stops below 10 C (50 F), and a bunch that starts in a cool month may fail to come out of the stem.
A good hunch A person has checked it against its sources. If you skip this, it still grows, just less well. The planner suggests it.
How it works
Cool weather slows the plant's leaf and shoot growth, and chilling at flowering stops the bunch from emerging from the stem.
What to do about it
Choose a variety known to handle cool weather, and plant it in the warmest, sunniest sheltered spot you have.
The evidence
Evidence: checked against 3 sources in the research-based literature.
The 3 sources
Temperature: Bananas flourish under uniformly warm to hot conditions. Shoot growth is best between 78°F to 82°F (26–28°C) and fruit growth at 84°F to 86°F (29–30°C). Plant growth slows below 60°F (16°C) and stops at 50°F (10°C). Symptoms of chilling injury (temperatures below 60°F/16°C but above 32°F/0°C) include failure of the flowering stalk or fruit bunch to emerge from the pseudostem (called choking), development of a dull yellow or greenish-gray color to ripening fruit, distorted fruit shape, and an increase in fruit rotting.
Cool weather and prolonged drought retard growth. Banana plants produce only one leaf per month in winter, 4 per month in summer. If low temperatures occur just at flowering time, the bud may not be able to emerge from the stem.
Can you grow bananas in cooler southern climates like Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne? Well, yes you can, but the key is to selecting the right varieties, and putting them in the right position.
Where this rule stops
It reads each month's normal mean against air temperatures the source does not call monthly averages; they are read as monthly averages, so the months it names are an estimate. No place in Milpa's data has a month below 10 °C.
Plants it applies to · 1
How this rule has changed
Every change is dated, newest first. The full record, with each reason, is in the data download.
- Added to the rules
More ways Milpa can help
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Cite this page
Milpa Gardens. “A banana grows slowly through cool months.” Evidence grade: A good hunch. https://milpa.garden/rules/banana-grows-slowly-through-months-that-average/
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How we grade evidence
- Well established
- The rule names its mechanism and is settled, by sources a person has read and checked or by plain arithmetic and geometry.
- Promising
- The mechanism is named and the literature backs it. A few questions are still open.
- A good hunch
- Plausible by its mechanism, but field studies are thin, so treat it as a lean.
- Contested
- The evidence points both ways, or no study has tested it, so the planner does not enforce it.
- Refuted
- The claim did not survive its sources. It is kept so the folklore can be answered.