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Bananas: A New Frontier in Hydroponic Cultivation? · Hydroponics Daily

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Hello there and welcome back to
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Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, and today we've got some breaking news.
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Yes, Russia has officially recognised bananas as an agricultural crop.
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I don't know what bananas were classified as before, but the Russian government
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have decided that they are officially an agricultural crop now.
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And I think that what that means is that any researchers can now get grants
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for researching prospects of growing bananas in certain regions in Russia,
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and they can get green lights for commercial greenhouses and crucially subsidies
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on those greenhouses and productions and facilities.
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The reason why Russia have done that is obvious. They've
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got obviously restrictions on international trade since
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they invaded ukraine and other things they've
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done before that as well and so if you're in russia then
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and you're a horticulturist then maybe you could start growing bananas
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we'll unpack how you actually do
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that in today's episode and if you're
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elsewhere in in the world maybe you want to grow hydroponic bananas
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and i'll give you some tips and
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some hints on how you could potentially go about do that i've not grown hydroponic
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bananas previously i have grown bananas i've got bananas in my garden but they're
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soil-based bananas the first thing to know is that bananas are not trees there's
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no such thing as a banana tree they are,
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herbaceous so they don't produce wood they are
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perennial though so they live for a number of years and
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they do have a stem so that's why people um or
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a trunk that's why people get confused but they're definitely not trees they're
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very large tree-like structures the other thing to notice is they're monocarpic
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or many species are monocarpic and that means that after they flower they can
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die off but the good news is they produce new shoots or pups that replace the,
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the previous plants and so because of this life cycle they produce a pseudo
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stem or a trunk and they fruit only once so there you go.
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Now, if you think of bananas, you obviously think of tropical grow conditions
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or subtropical regions.
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Think Central America, Southeast Asia, East Africa, the Canary Islands.
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So ideal conditions are 25 to 30 degrees Celsius daytime, steady sunlight and 90% humidity.
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And that's pretty much the ideal conditions, but they must not fall below 15 degrees Celsius,
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which will stall growth and frosts and
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even low temperatures can cause the pseudo stem to collapse
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completely so even below 10 degrees celsius
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you're in real trouble so that's why greenhouse cultivation
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in cooler climates requires strict environmental control
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they can be grown in greenhouses but you can't let your
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heating fail so who's growing
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bananas hydroponically well there was a
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commercial glass house trial in england an attempt at
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all year round uk production but they that has
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stalled mainly due to the cost and environmental complexities of
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growing such a large crop in a glass house with such a
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long period to harvest and the fact that you
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can get bananas fairly cheap still this is not a
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high value crop really but if could be one for the future if disease wipes out
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the the plantations we'll go more on that later various research institutes
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have tested hydroponic bananas in controlled environments though the no scalable
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scalable results as yet.
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And then in the 1980s, Purdue University did a trial and they found that bananas
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were one of the top crops that could potentially be grown in a moon base with a hydroponic garden.
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So when we colonise the moon or Mars, as well as potatoes, as in the Martian,
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it could be bananas. Bananas and potatoes.
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What recipe can you cook with bananas and potatoes?
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Contact me on social media and tell me
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what's the ideal banana potato recipe
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i do like a banana split so yeah
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but i don't know where potatoes come into that so what varieties are there and
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what the pests and diseases well it's the dwarf cavendish is the is the one
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variety that's grown worldwide it's one crop that is grown with just one variety
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there's very little genetic diversity amongst those that are grown.
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And there's been very little successful attempts to introduce new varieties
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with genetics from outside. And that comes with a number of issues.
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Yes, they're all consistent. A banana is a banana. It tastes like a banana. But...
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There have been issues where it's thought that actually older bananas that were
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more susceptible to disease different varieties had different tastes and now
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we're left with this one bland taste same with strawberries it's thought that
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strawberries used to have lots of different tastes,
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you can grow japanese bananas musa badju i think off the top of my head that's
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what i have in my garden they're smaller but they are somewhat frost tolerant
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and they're grown as an ornamental plant not as an edible crop.
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So I have them in my garden.
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Some years I remember to wrap them up in bubble wrap to protect them against frost.
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Other years I don't. In the years
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I do, the pseudostem is protected and survives and the tree grows tall.
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I said tree. The plant grows tall.
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In other years, I forget to bubble wrap them and the pseudostem dies and the
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pups sprout up from the bottom and it grows again.
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It's really the wind that is the issue though in environments
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like england and it has two effects
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in the summer it rips the leaves and sort of produces these pseudo
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compound leaves where they're
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stripped and then in the winter the it's like the wind chill
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effect they strip like uh freeze dry
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the plant so it actually dries out of
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lack of water so that's why put some something even just
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like some plastic around or some fleece or
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some hessian wrap or something like that helps and
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also you got to make sure they don't get too damp in there because they'll get
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fungal diseases and fungal diseases are the main
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main issue there's something called panama disease
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it's a soil-borne fungal banana killer
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it's a fusarium wilt and it is the main threat to banana production worldwide
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and people are trying to breed bananas to be resistant they're trying to do
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things like rna i technology crisper technology new pesticides things like this
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to control Fusarium Wilt.
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There's also banana weevils, aphids, nematodes, something called black cigatoka.
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I'm not sure I'll get a picture of that up.
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That's a foliar fungal disease, so it looks pretty nasty.
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Black cigatoka. And as I say, wind damage, that's a big issue.
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But yeah, Fusarium wilt or Panama disease is the one that everyone is concerned with.
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I think bananas are a massive crop in Panama, aren't they?
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And almost like the banana companies run panama to the extent although i think
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don trump's saying that the chinese run panama at the moment aren't they so
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cultural practices and propagation propagation is by dividing the pups the small
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little plantlets that grow at the bottom.
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But be careful to avoid rot in humid hydroponic
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systems you know we're saying that these need to be 90 humidity
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but they could also when you cut them there's a wound and fungal
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fungal pathogens could get in so sterilize them with something even
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if it's just mild bleach the we've had
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issues with we've had a dwarf cavendish in the office that's
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died and that produced loads of pups and then eventually it
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just gave way and then the center of the plant just died off
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which is unfortunate normally with its bananas in the uk in
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grow shops and things like that it's mainly spider mites um always
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be wary of going too close to an ornamental banana if
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you have a hydroponic setup because ornamental bananas
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indoors can get covered in red
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spider mite so if you your local
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grow shop has a banana still stay well clear and ask the person in the grow
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shop to check it for spider mites because they are notoriously they will spider
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mites will kill the banana plant stone dead and almost impossible to clear the
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plant you would need a i'd use a some sort of.
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Protectant and I would use biological control to try and get rid of them and
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also just put them outside give them a dose of UV and,
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to help get rid of the spider-mats. Spider-mats hate being outdoors normally,
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especially on very sunny, cold days, so that might be a good option.
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Did you know that bananas can even walk? So it's thought that banana plantations
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walk and move out of fields.
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The pups emerge sometimes a metre away from the parent, the pseudostem,
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and so if the ground's crowded, they can all move in one direction to fresh,
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cultivated land. So that's why people talk about bananas walking.
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You won't surprise you to know that banana
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fertilizers tend to have a high potassium level especially during
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fruiting bananas are renowned for their high potassium level
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and that potassium has to come from somewhere and if you're growing hydroponically there's
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only one place that potassium is coming from and that is through the
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fertigation and the fertilizer the good news is that
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the vast vast majority of hydroponic fertilizers contain
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ample levels of potassium and all of
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the additives contain loads of potassium as well so in
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hydroponics i always say normally you've
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got too much potassium not a deficiency in
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it so if i was going bananas i wouldn't worry about it consistent calcium
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and magnesium to support food and fruit integrity is important
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and your nutrient level
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should be higher than lettuce and tomatoes these
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do require a high dose so
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the upper end of your fertilizer regime and
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then monocots which is
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like grasses bamboos onions in that
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section of plants and so if monocots
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need lots more silicon than other crops so
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if you're used to growing a dicot plant like tomatoes cucumbers
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hops legal cannabis crops are dicots trees apart from conifers cherry trees
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they require a lot of calcium monocots need a lot more silicon than those crops
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so you i would really bump up your silicon additive.
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As you said there's ornamental plants that can tolerate down to minus 10 degrees
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celsius but your hydroponic grow room wants to be easily above 20.
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One of your issues is going to be the height that the plants can grow?
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They can grow very tall, multiple metres tall.
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Can your grow room or your greenhouse accommodate that?
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Have you been able to remove disease from the starting material,
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the propagation material, make sure it's quarantined?
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It would be terrible to set up a lovely,
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hydroponic banana cultivation system say in an isolated area
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like the Faroe Islands and say oh we're going to grow bananas reduce our
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reliance on imports it's going to be great because it's going to be disease
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free then you import all these pups and then they've all got fusarium on them
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so you really want to make sure you're sterilizing the hell out of these bananas
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before you put them into your environment and you start moving around a hydroponic
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system that's going to spread spores and pathogens all around so I think you're
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going to have to budget your heat and your humidity.
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And your air movement is going to be very
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energy intensive it's going to be fertilizer intensive it's
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going to be heat intensive you need to have a lot of humidity humidifiers running
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you're going to want a lot of wind as well because
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that heat and that humidity to get co2 into
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the leaves you're going to need good air movement but not to the point where you
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damage the leaves obviously because that will impact
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growth and you're gonna have to cost out your your pups
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but they should be fairly cheap i would
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sanitize with bleach i'd go again with hydrogen peroxide
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i might even do a lime sulfur things like that so as
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i say there's future potential especially with russia's recognition
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now they have officially recognized bananas as
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a crop it's like when they officially recognize some
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breakaway republic in georgia or
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moldova transnistra something like that they're the
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only country in the world that officially recognizes them and they
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issue them with passports stuff just to cause a
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bit of chaos in those countries so yeah but no
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i think everyone can agree that russia recognizing bananas
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as a crop is probably a logical thing to do
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they're not recognizing them as a automotive vehicle or something like that
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strange i would have thought that there's probably been a lot of development
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in kazakhstan yes don't mention borat kazakhstan for bananas because they've
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got subtropical greenhouses in Kazakhstan.
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And there's lots of money going into greenhouses in Kazakhstan because I think
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they've got very close relations with Russia or traditionally have.
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And so they could potentially export. They're not subject to EU bans on fruits and vegetables.
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So I think the horticulture industry in Kazakhstan has been a bit of a boom
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at the moment because of that.
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If you're new in Kazakhstan, please share this podcast with them haven't got
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any listeners in Kazakhstan yet or many of those central Asian states Kyrgyzstan
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Turkmenistan which ones have I missed out.
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Any of the stands that are in Central Asia, Afghanistan, share this podcast with them.
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If you know anyone in the military in Afghanistan, share this with them.
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Any of the special forces, so I can get some listeners there.
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So potentially combine it with renewable energy as well to get that heat up.
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That's probably going to be anywhere where you can control and save money on
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heating is going to be where you can make money in cultivating bananas.
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Even so, I would imagine if you're going bananas in Russia
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or its former Soviet states that are friendly
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to it then it's going to be down in the south and in
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the caspian sea in kazakhstan or down in where was
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the winter olympics on in
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the black sea down there let me google it sochi
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yeah i'd imagine i don't know like turkey's not
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in signed up to eu sanctions on
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russia so perhaps down near antalia they
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might grow some bananas for russia it's popular tourist
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destination for as well down in turkey if you know different
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if i've besmirched your country if i've
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represented it incorrectly then please let me know i would
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like to know but yeah bananas are fascinating they're
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technically perennials they grow for many years they're monocarpics they
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die after they flower they're not trees and while
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banana hydroponic banana production will be very complex you've
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got to get all that root system into perhaps a very small rock
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wall slab it's not possible i would imagine you
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might have to support them because they're not going to have the
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root system stability that you might
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have to tie them up like a normal like a vine crop
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all sorts of things that you know i haven't considered here
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just the practicalities of growing them i would definitely
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definitely inspect them for fusarium
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and spider mites on a daily basis and i'd
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look at what was the optimum co2 levels because of
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those high humidities you might know co2 supplementation will probably be essential.
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But that's it for hydroponics daily today if you know more about growing hydroponic.
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Bananas then please let me know yeah i mean maybe one advantage would be that
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less you could you could harvest them closer to to the point of.
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Ripeness so you could supply more nutrient
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dense and flavoursome bananas that don't have to be picked when
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they're green there won't be any tarantulas or spiders
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crawling in the boxes like when they come from the caribbean
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and places like that africa what other advantages
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could we have just lower um air miles
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you know something like a pineapple can travel
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10 000 miles when it's picked in brazil travels to indonesia comes back to somewhere
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else to be you know processed further and things like this so yeah potentially
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although it's energy intensive could potentially be lower carbon so but i would
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imagine unless the price of bananas shoots up due to fissarium wilt it will be,
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stay on very small scale but as i say russia there's a potential for commercial
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production because of the export controls i don't know what the price of banana
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is in russia if you're in russia and you know what the price of banana is then
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let me know and since the invasion and war in Ukraine.
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Has the price of bananas gone up?
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I'm allowed to say war. I don't have to say police operation,
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do I? Because I'm not in Russia.
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I'm not going to Russia anytime soon. So yeah, since the war in Ukraine,
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the invasion, has the price of bananas shut up dramatically to the point where
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it's commercially viable to get production?
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The thing is that bananas are such a staple crop. Although they're a fruit,
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everyone loves a banana.
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And it's not like a niche crop black wasabi that's
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expensive but only a few people are going to eat it everyone virtually
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eats a banana at least once a week or something like that or
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bananas go into food there's a number one ingredient in
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smoothies there's a great example of you look at innocent smoothies they say
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like you know blueberry and cranberry and all this and stuff but you look at
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the ingredient the main the main ingredient is always bananas and apple juice
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and so yeah bananas used in a lot of processing and when they're limited people
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yearn for them especially in europe
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so i had when i was a kid we had a eastern east german exchange student in our
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house just after the berlin wall came down and she said that when she was younger.
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Cued all day to buy her a banana
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so she could experience a banana and that's
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crazy isn't it imagine your mother cuing up all
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day to buy you a banana something that we take for
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granted and just go into the supermarket and throw in our basket
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we don't even look at the price well i don't but
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yeah i'm in that lucky position so yeah maybe
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one day with fusarium and increased conflicts around the world and food insecurity
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maybe we'll all start queuing up for bananas and trying to grow them ourselves
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in our hydroponic setups who knows thank you very much for listening that's
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been hydroponics daily for today if you know somebody who wants to grow bananas
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hydroponically then share this episode with them thank you very much.