Japanese banana, Musa Basjoo

Hello,

Does somebody knows for what musa basjoo are good in a permaculture-forest garden? And how can I make cordage of it?

Gr. Matis

I believe that Musa Basjoo is an ornamental plant so if you are referring to an application for food forest of sorts than no, it will not produce.  I am sorry but I am familiar with manufacture of ropes using banana fiber.  I did find this video however of a hand technique to making ropes from the fiber, but the specific species produces a particularly strong fiber.  You may want something much more automated and the curing process will have to be ironed out.



If you want to grow banana fruit in the the nontropical north (I assume because this is cold hardy) you will have to use a greenhouse with a dwarf variety of banana.  Not all bananas produce edible fruit.  Look into North American pawpaw and more specifically cultivars developed by Peterson at http://petersonpawpaws.com/Order.php as these fruit have qualities you may find appreciative and comparable to banana.

Well, I don't need fruit of it and I know that the fruit from the basjoo isn't edible but it was more for the fiber. But I can't get fibers from it?

According to Wikipedia, it can be used to make a textile (banana cloth), but it doesn't mention cordage.

Hmm, that's also interesting...
Does somebody has some expirience with this?

Gr. Matis

I'm not sure how to go about making cordage, but I know a guy who is growing Musa basjoo for the leaves. He sells them to high end SE Asian restaurants as plate liners. He also sells them to folks from Central America who have a tradition of using banana leaves instead of corn husks for making tamales.

Dave

I'm considering trying to make some cordage from my ornamental bananas, which I believe are of this species. It might be more work than it's worth, but it would be nice to have an alternative use for them other than mulch and compost feed... they are annoyingly vigorous, mostly because they're poorly placed in my garden. They grow so strong they can knock down the rock walls around the garden, falling into the neighbor's plot.

There is no easily available English on this process. It is easy to find in Japanese though by searching for 芭蕉糸作り方（bashoitodukurikata）These websites are in Japanese but you can use a translation software to get the language of your choice. They are rich with pictures of the process:

http://setouchi-bunkaisan.com/time/30


http://okinoerabu-bashofu.jp/process.html



And a video in Japanese as well. Unfortunately no English subtitles.

Marla Kacey wrote:According to Wikipedia, it can be used to make a textile (banana cloth), but it doesnt mention cordage.

Here is a link to the mentioned Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_basjoo

I just read in one of the Japanese articles that the center part of the banana stalk is edible. Apparently it makes good tempura. It looks a lot like palm hearts.

L Johnson, thanks for mentioning about the edible banana stem which peaked my interest so I ask Pinterest:


source


source

When I was looking at this thread previously I found a great video on the traditional Japanese process for cloth making. It really does look like a lovely fibre material.



I've grown Muso banana here, but I had to evict it from my polytunnel because it just grew too big. A few years later we had a really cold spell which killed the roots. I wish I'd known then all these extra uses - thanks everyone!

That's interesting.  I hadn't thought about that as an extra use for bananas.

I'm planning to grow a bunch of dwarf, cold-hardy seeded banana species to try to breed one that can produce yummy bananas in my zone 7b climate without protection.  I have seeds; I'll be planting them out in spring.  Musa basjoo is one I'll try only as a last resort, because it's too tall; I don't think it will produce fruit before winter.  Musa velutina, which is only six to eight feet tall-ish, has a very good chance, however.  And it's quite cold hardy.  And the fruit is supposed to be tasty.  And it's pretty, with bright pink bananas!

It's supposed to only be hardy to zone 8a, but that's very close to my zone of 7b, and if I'm starting from seeds, the chance of me finding at least one plant that's a few degrees hardier than usual is excellent.  I figure I'll treat them as a landrace, growing new ones from seeds instead of cloning them, so that I'll get them really adapted to my climate.

There are another six or seven short, cold-hardy Musa species I'm planning to do that with, too.  Musa velutina is just the one that's most promising.  (The others are wild species.)  I've decided I can live with seeds in my bananas, as long they'll grow without protection in my climate and produce fruit that tastes good.

Mind you, if any of them happen to cross and produce a brand new type of cold hardy, seedless banana with fruit that grows to maturity within six months and tastes good -- well, of course I'll clone it and share it like crazy.    That's sorta the holy grail of banana breeding, however, so my primary goal is to accomplish that with seeded bananas and be perfectly fine if a seedless one never shows up.

Emily Sorensen wrote:Musa basjoo is one I'll try only as a last resort, because it's too tall; I don't think it will produce fruit before winter.

It might be interesting to include musa basjoo in a landrace project, but the fruit isn't really edible. For hardiness though it might be a valuable input in terms of genetics as it does grow in much cooler climate than a lot of bananas.

I've heard conflicting reports about Musa basjoo fruit, actually.  Most people don't like it, but some say it's good.  My suspicion is that, because the species is grown from seed rather than cloned, there's a huge amount of variability in flavor.  I suspect that if someone gathered a whole ton of seeds from different sources and got serious about landrace breeding that species, they could produce a population with consistently delicious fruit.  That may be a good project for someone who wants tall cold-hardy bananas to do.

There's a difference between "edible" and "palatable."  I see a lot of people throw around "inedible" with seeded bananas, and it's not accurate.  They're not poisonous.  They're nutritious.  Most even taste good.  They just have seeds, which makes them less palatable.  But they are completely edible, even the ones that don't taste good.

Emily Sorensen wrote:I've heard conflicting reports about Musa basjoo fruit, actually.  Most people don't like it, but some say it's good.  My suspicion is that, because the species is grown from seed rather than cloned, there's a huge amount of variability in flavor.  I suspect that if someone gathered a whole ton of seeds from different sources and got serious about landrace breeding that species, they could produce a population with consistently delicious fruit.  That may be a good project for someone who wants tall cold-hardy bananas to do.

There's a difference between "edible" and "palatable."  I see a lot of people throw around "inedible" with seeded bananas, and it's not accurate.  They're not poisonous.  They're nutritious.  Most even taste good.  They just have seeds, which makes them less palatable.  But they are completely edible, even the ones that don't taste good.

Fair enough. In my case the fruit are too small to be worth harvesting, like grape sized. I'll try to harvest one and get some pictures for science and fun!

Interesting topic (and Emily I'll be looking forward to your landrace banana project)!

Here's a link to some more Musa basjoo uses, including fiber (from stems), paper (from leaves), and medicinal/tonic: https://tryonfarm.org/share/node/346#:~:text=Used%20for%20cloth%2C%20sails%20etc,www.ibiblio.org).