Showing posts with label Banana. Show all posts
How To Care For Your Banana Tree
Posted by Unknown in Banana on Tuesday, 14 May 2013
Bananas are
one of the fastest growing perennial plants that grow from rhizomes. The
trunks of the banana are actually fleshy sheaths that are formed by
leaf sheaths arranged in concentric layers.
The stem of the
banana tree grows from a corn that is planted underground. The stem
grows out through the center of the stalk and takes about 12-15 months
to grow mature. Each stalk is capable of producing just one huge flower
after which it withers off. New stalks then sprout from the rhizome.
Banana plants are immensely attractive and create a tropical atmosphere
to the entire surroundings.
When to plant?
Bananas require
heat and a sunny location to be able to grow and produce healthy
fruits. So summer is the best time for planting them. Ensure that they
are planted in areas where there is abundant sunlight all throughout the
day, failing which they would stop growing. If you plant a banana plant
in the winter months, plant them where there is enough sun and also
reduce the watering to prevent root rot as the winter months will have
more moisture trapped in the soil.
Where to plant?
Planting
bananas in rocky organic soil which are well draining and areas with
lava sand is the best way to plant them. Avoid planting bananas in areas
where the soil is always wet or in standing water to prevent root rot.
Cactus mix soil gives the best results as it naturally contains lava
sand, lava soil and other nutritional items that help in the overall
growth. The soil in which you plant the banana tree must not be too wet
which can initiate root rot. If the soil retains more water during the
winter months, reduce the watering frequency. During summer months, make
sure that you give them enough water to prevent them from drying.
How to plant?
First find a
good container on which you can plant the banana tree. Choose the right
location where there is ample sunlight and sand. Now make a hole that is
two times as wide as the container. The depth must be 1½ times more
than the depth of the container. Fill the hole with 4 inches of manure
and the rest of the height can be covered with soil until you reach a
height where the banana tree can be planted comfortably. Now the bottom
of the container has to be broken off and the container must be kept
inside the hole in such a way that the edge of the container is around 2
inches above the soil. Cut off the edges and two-thirds part of the
hole with soil mix and one-third part with native soil. Water the plant
well and form a berm around the plant with the remaining part of the
soil.
How to water?
Watering of the
banana plant must be done carefully as too little and too much water
can spoil the plant and lead to root rot and drying. During summer
months, you can water the plants in a slow and deep manner every 2 to 3
days. Watering must be done when the top part of the soil is dry. During
winter, watering should be less frequent as the sand tends to retain
more water. Similarly, during the summer months, it is also important to
water frequently as the soil can dry fast due to the hot sun.
Fertilizers required
Being heavy
feeders, fertilizing banana plants regularly during the growing season
will help in getting healthy bananas. A balanced fertilizer which
contains all micro-nutrients can be applied whenever you water the
plants. Fertilizers can also be applied once every month. Organic
fertilizers are good and during the flowering season, care must be taken
to avoid nitrogen as it can blacken the bananas.
Common diseases
Panama disease
is the most common disease affecting plants, especially bananas. The
symptoms start at the feeder roots and go on to affect the rhizome and
they are where the stele joins the cortex. Brown flecks start appearing
on the older leaves and finally the xylem turns brick red, spoiling the
entire plant. Moko disease, banana bunchy top, toppling disease, black
leaf streak, etc. are other diseases that affect younger plants with
similar symptoms.
Weeds and pests
All weeds that
are growing in the site must be removed before the banana plant is
planted. Common pests affecting banana plant are banana aphid, corm
weevil, mealy bugs, etc.
Things to watch out for
If your banana
plant is exposed to too much sun during the fruiting season, make sure
that you cover the fruit adequately with a light weight material or
provide shade to the fruit to prevent sunburn.
Solar Powered ‘Drought Fighter’ Ensures Water for Small Farms
Posted by Unknown in Banana, Drip Irrigation, India, Irrigation, Solar Energy on Monday, 13 May 2013
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| Demonstrating the use of the solar pwered drought fighter. Photo: Special Arrangement |
M. J. PRABU
The Hindu
Presently
farmers in Tamil Nadu are battling two problems — acute water shortage
and a major power crisis. “Even to pump out the fast dwindling water
from the wells for irrigating the crops farmers need electricity.
Sometimes they get it after 14 hours or some days they get the supply in
6-7 hours.
“There is no
fixed time. A few months ago, when I was visiting a field in Kadayam
region in Tirunelveli I saw a farmer spraying his 25 cents of rose crop
carrying a hand operated sprayer. He was walking several times towards
his field bund to fill his manual sprayer.
Rapidly dwindling
“Only a few
more weeks were left for him to do the daily pickings after which he
cannot continue, since summer is fast approaching and already the water
level in the wells is rapidly dwindling,” says Dr. P.David Raja Beula,
Assistant Director of Horticulture Kadayam.
Mr. David has
developed a device called ‘Drought fighter’ that promises to be of help
during dry season or when water availability is low.
The main
feature of this device is that it does not require electricity to
operate it, but works on solar energy. It is priced at Rs.15,000.
“The machine is
mainly developed to help a farmer conserve water and use the available
water efficiently for irrigating his crops, without using electricity.
Already several wells in the region are fast becoming dry with no water.
Throughout the State it is the same. Having already developed a solar
spray I decided to apply the same idea and developed this new water
conserving machine that runs on solar power,” he says.
The drought fighter has a two-metre-long sucking tube and a 20 metre long delivery hose with a lance and a nozzle attached.
An 18 watt
small solar panel is attached to a 12 volt electric motor. All farmers
need to do is place the solar panel along with the motor under the sun
for an hour and start using it.
Running time
Once charged it
can continuously run for three hours, after which the motor needs to be
switched off and the panel needs to be charged again.
Whenever there
is electricity, water from the well can be pumped into four or five 200
litres plastic barrels. Later the drought fighter is kept on top of one
of the barrels and the sucking hose immersed in it..
Water can be
sprayed in a 360 degrees circle using the 20 metre-long delivery hose,
covering 25 percents of area at a time. More area can be covered by
periodically shifting of the entire system.
Farmers can also mix their choice of pesticides or bio-pesticides in the barrel and spray.
As water need
not be carried on the back it reduces physical labour for the farmer.
The device can be used to cultivate almost all crops.
Major advantage
“The major
advantage of this over the traditional back pack sprayer is that a
farmer need not have to carry the weight of 16 litres of water on his
back every time. All he needs to do is place the plastic barrels in
different places in the field, fill them with water and use this machine
to irrigate, spray his crops,” explains Mr. David.
Mr. Mathew, a
farmer from Thiruvananthapuram, who uses this drought fighter to spray
his betel vine and pepper crop says, “It is quite a sturdy instrument
and requires only one person to operate it. Since it is powered by solar
energy I save on the cost of fuel.”
Lot of queries
“Even when the
well has minimum quantity of water, vegetables and flowers can be
cultivated in a few cents of land using this device. In Kadayam block,
Tirunelveli farmers were encouraged to carry on flower cultivation with
the help of this drought fighter and now our Horticulture office is
flooded with requests from farmers to purchase hybrid Tomato, Bhendi,
Brinjal, Bitter gourd and leafy vegetables seeds,” says Mr. David.
“Till date I
have manufactured this device only on order. And nationalized banks are
giving credit assistance to farmers to buy this machine,” he says.
For further details those inetrested can contact Mr. P.David Raja Beula , Assistant Director of Horticulture Kadayam on email:microeconomicsdavid@yahoo.co.in or mobile: 09486285704.
Banana Peel Compost for Rose
Posted by Unknown in Advise and Tips, Banana, Manure and Composting, Rose on Friday, 29 March 2013
Bury a banana peel 1" down at the base of a rosebush. The potassium will feed the plant and help it fight of diseases.
Eat a Banana, Save the Planet!
Posted by Unknown in Banana, Canada, Climate Change, Environmental Issues, Global Warming on Tuesday, 29 January 2013
Look,
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Chiquita Bananas, after having long
ago learned about human-rights repressing, anti-democratic business
practices which their predecessor, the United Fruit Company, engaged in
throughout Central America in the past century. So I find having to
write about what’s been happening in the media today a little ironic.
But at the same time, there’s actually a lot at stake, and since much of
it is going on behind-the-scenes, I thought I’d take a few moments to
share my own observations about bananas and their media-hyped impact on
climate change.
For
rest assured, despite Ezra Levant’s rant in Sun Media today (“Yes we
have no bananas, you hypocrite”, the Sudbury Star, December 20, 2011),
the issue at hand isn’t simply about bananas, or even Levant’s strange
concept of “ethical oil” (on which he wrote the book – quite literally,
he wrote the book “Ethical Oil” from which he now profits through
shameless self-promotion of the term). Nor is it necessarily even about
human rights – at least not in the way that Levant and others are
portraying the matter.
Instead,
what we’re seeing playing out in the media today has everything to do
with Canada’s war on climate change action, and our government’s
shameless shilling for the multinational oil industry. You see, the
Harper regime came to the conclusion quite a while ago that fighting
climate change for the good of Canadians and providing profit for Big
Oil was mutually exclusive. Since then, they’ve gone out of their way to
put the interests of their corporatist supporters ahead of those of
Canadians. Indeed, with their recent decision to withdraw from the Kyoto
Accord, the Harper regime has taken considerable pride in giving the
finger to the entire world.
But
this isn’t about Kyoto. This is about the Harper regime’s constant war
on the interests of Canadians. By continuing their unmitigated acts of
sabotage against the interests of average middle-class Canadians by
accommodating at seemingly every opportunity the interests of the oil
industry, Harper and his ilk are condemning both Canada and the world to
the effects of runaway climate change. All of this is being done simply
so the oil companies can make even more profit. There is no other
reason which stands up to scrutiny.
Sun Media Goes Bananas
Now,
if that sounds a little over-the-top to you, consider the humble
banana. Levant and his cohorts at Sun Media seem to think that they’ve
hit upon a really cheery holiday story which will warm the cockles of
their neo-liberal supporters, some of whom, such as Jason Kenney, are
ministers of the Canadian government. Levant has tweaked to the notion
that Chiquita Brands has somehow made a decision to boycott Alberta’s
oil. And in Levant’s world, that’s tantamount to treason against the
State! Although which state, exactly, no one is sure (maybe it’s that
North American Union which the neo-liberals are just waiting to spring
on us all, without any consultation…kinda like yesterday’s health “deal”
announcement. But that’s another story).
In
response, Levant and Sun Media have called for a boycott of Chiquita
bananas. To provide even more ammunition in support of a boycott, Levant
points out that Chiquita was just fined back in 2007 for giving
“protection money” to South American paramilitary organizations, some of
which appear on the U.S.A’s list of known terrorist organizations. And
Levant is right: that’s pretty bad. Of course, giving money to the
government of Colombia, which continues to threaten and abuse the rights
of its own people is also pretty bad. It’s all pretty messy in
Colombia, no matter how you look at it. But, depending on who is doing
the looking, the mess might not matter so much. And thanks to the Harper
regime, Canada now has a free-trade deal with the human-rights
repressing regime currently in charge of Colombia. Well, most of
Colombia anyway. But that’s another story.
Now,
here’s where things get interesting. A little further digging reveals
that Chiquita Brands has not launched any kind of boycott against
Alberta oil. What they have done is announce that they will try to use
petroleum from non-dirty sources for transport fuel, in order to try to
limit the effects of climate change, at least somewhat. This does mean
that Chiquita will be trying to steer clear of oil produced from tar
sands bitumen. And that’s what seems to have Levant’s so upset.
I
guess Levant would feel a lot better if the humans-rights abusing,
terrorist-sponsoring Chiquita Brands had instead decided to buy tar
sands oil. I know that I would have felt better. I suppose that for
Levant it’s best to do business with the devil than have the devil take
his business elsewhere. But that’s another story.
Environmental Tariffs
There
are actually a few things at stake here, and singling out Chiquita
Brands for a boycott actually plays quite well as a media-hypable proxy
for addressing the bigger issues. You see, right now the European Union
is considering labelling Canadian heavy oil produced from tar sands
bitumen as “harmful to the environment” (and therefore “dirty”) in
comparison to oil derived from conventional sources. This means that
importing tar sands oil into the EU will require the imposition of a
surcharge (a.k.a. “a tariff”), which amounts to a financial penalty
assessed against dirty oil producers.
And
it also could stand as a precedent which ends up penalizing dirty
Canadian industries. The State of California has just recently announced
that it will support the EU’s labelling initiative as it pertains to
tar sands oil. Presumably, that means that tar sands oil ending up in
California may also be subject to a tariff.
And
California…that’s the same U.S. state which has been in the news lately
because it is part of the Western Climate Initiative (WCI). Recently,
the Province of Quebec announced that it was moving forward with
establishing a cap and trade emissions trading scheme under the auspices
of the WCI. So, dirty Alberta oil could also receive a surcharge of
sorts through a cap and trade program if it were to be imported
to…Quebec.
What
other provinces are also a part of the WCI? Why, Ontario, Manitoba and
British Columbia. Together with Quebec, that means that over half of
Canadians may one day end up paying more for dirty Alberta oil through
some sort of surcharge levied through a cap and trade scheme.
Dirty Oil
Look,
call it what you want, but the fact is that oil produced from tar sands
bitumen produces significantly more greenhouse gases than oil derived
from conventional sources (between 3 and 5 times as much). So, from the
point of view of carbon pollution, the oil is dirtier, period, end of
story. And we know that the historic build-up of greenhouse gases in our
atmosphere is what’s responsible for global warming and the Earth’s
changing climate.
Interestingly,
the Harper regime has probably done its corporatist oil-industry
buddies no favours by pulling out of Kyoto. What Harper has accomplished
is to hand the European Union the smoking gun it needs to affirm that
Canadian tar sands oil really is dirty and therefore to subject it to a
tariff at the time of import. And while its true that the EU imports
hardly any dirty oil from Canada right now, it’s the precedent of the
matter which is much more important.
And
if the importation of dirty oil itself can be subject to a tariff, what
about products produced exclusively from energy derived from dirty
sources? Why not subject them to a tariff as well?
Climate Change and the Economy
EU
nations, including the tar-sands supporting United Kingdom (with David
Cameron’s government playing Harper’s proxy at the EU negotiations),
have met their Kyoto greenhouse reduction commitments, and in many
cases, have exceeded them. The governments of the European nations made
the hard choices back in the late 1990s to take Kyoto seriously. It
turns out that those choices weren’t really all that hard to make, as
producing cleaner energy has actually led to job creation throughout the
EU, and especially in nations such as Denmark and Germany, which (along
with China) are now the go-to places for clean energy products and
research and development. The EU nations accomplished all of this while
still growing their economies. Their success story doesn’t at all mirror
the Harper regime’s narrative which pits the choice of “jobs” against
“the environment”. But that’s another story.
With
the EU having done their heavy-lifting regarding climate change,
Canada’s withdrawal from Kyoto has come as a bit of a slap in the face.
That Canada’s withdrawal has come at the same time of an announcement to
continue to expand the dirty-oil producing tar sands (coincidentally
timed to take place during the Durban COP-17 climate change conference)
will not be lost on the Europeans. With Canada’s declaration of war
against those wishing to stave off the economy-crippling horrors of
climate change, labelling tar sands oil as “dirty” now more than ever
seems like an easy decision for the EU to make.
And
make no mistake: the economies of most nations in the world face
significant risk from a changing climate. That Canada, which has been
pushing the completely misguided notions of “climate prosperity” and
“ethical oil”, will also suffer from the upheaval of climate change
seems to matter little to the Harper regime. Canada’s economy is
integrated with the global economic village, and our economy is sure to
be negatively impacted by economic upheaval throughout the globe. For
the Harper regime, that average Canadians will suffer from global
economic devastation isn’t nearly as important as the need to continue
to enrich the Harper’s oil interest buddies and supporters.
And
that’s what makes this all a human rights issue, and a moral issue. Is
it moral for Canada, one of the world’s biggest per-capita polluters, to
sabotage international efforts which seek to limit greenhouse gas
emissions and which (hopefully) will lessen the social/physical/economic
impacts of climate change? Is it ethical to put the corporatist
interests of Big Oil ahead of the interests of just about everyone else
on the planet? By declaring war on efforts to combat climate change,
Canada’s government has made its decision. I’ll leave it to you to
determine whether it was a moral one. I suspect that you know my own
opinion.
Saving the Planet, One Banana at a Time!
Which
brings us back to bananas and the boycott against Chiquita Brands for
having the audacity to finally make an attempt at being a “good
corporate citizen” (at least as far as climate change goes…which, by the
way, will almost certainly impact Chiquita’s own bottom line, as they
have invested heavily in agricultural activities in tropical areas of
the world, which are sure to be some of those hardest hit by climate
change…so Chiquita probably does have a vested interest in taking
climate change action). If Chiquita can be made to bend on the concept
of “dirty oil”, it will prove to be yet more ammunition in the fight
against labelling at the EU, and (probably more importantly) by
California (and potentially other WCI partners). And if the boycott
works and leads to Chiquita backing down, woe be to any other business
which decides that it’s going to try to implement a similar action in
the name of “environmental responsibility”. Including those businesses
which operate almost exclusively in California and which may not have a
choice in the matter. Canadian boycotts of Californian businesses may
yet prove to be the sort of political wedge issue which neo-liberal
Republicans in California might use to gain control of the State and
turn back the clock on dirty tar sands oil decisions. There is a long
game being played here.
The
banana may yet become a more compelling symbol in the fight against
climate change than “350” or “2 degrees C”. Although the science would
likely prove otherwise, I can certainly see the slogan, “Eat a banana,
save the planet” catching on, at least for a little while, thanks to Sun
Media.
Posted By Steve May
(opinions
expressed in this blog post are my own and should not be considered to
be in keeping with those of the Green Party of Canada)
(this blogpost was originally posted at www.sudburysteve.blogspot.com)
