Thinning of Plantain Suckers and the Importance

Plantain, Musa × paradisiaca (syn. Musa sapientum) is an herbaceous perennial belonging to the family Musaceae. Plantains are distinguished from bananas by their fruit which, although morphologically very similar to bananas, are actually longer, firmer and possess a higher starch content and thicker skin than their sweeter relative. Like banana, the plant is tall and tree-like with a sturdy pseudostem and large broad leaves arranged spirally at the top.

The leaves are large blades with a pronounced central midrib and obvious veins. They can reach up to 2.7 m (8.9 ft) in length and up to 0.6 m (2.0 ft) in width. Each pseudostem produces a group of flowers from which the fruits develop in an hanging cluster. In commercial plantations, the parent plant dies after harvest and is replaced with a daughter plant. However, a plantation can grow for 25 years or more if managed properly. The trees can reach heights between 2 and 9 m (6.6–29.5 ft).

Unlike those of most other bananas, plantain suckers develop very slowly. After harvest, all suckers start to grow at the same time and most have to be eliminated to stop competition. The tallest is left to guarantee the follow up and maintain the density.
Thinning usually has to be repeated a month later, as new suckers will have emerged by that time.

A sucker is a shoot that develops from a lateral bud on the rhizome and emerges from the soil usually near the parent plant. It is a form of asexual, or vegetative, reproduction, that makes the banana plant perennial. Suckers emerge and ensure a more or less continuous supply of shoots, each capable of producing an inflorescence. They have been used as planting material since the early days of domestication by severing them from the mat and transplanting them to a new location.

Both wild species of plantains / bananas and cultivated plantains / bananas produce suckers. The horticultural term for the clump of shoots and the rhizome through which they are interconnected is a mat. The botanical term for a mat is genet and for the above-ground ground shoots is ramet.

Wild species may produce few or many suckers. Over time, some form dense and compact mats. This strategy, together with dormant seeds that germinate in disturbed soil, enables wild bananas to quickly colonise the edges of disturbed forest clearings. Norman Simmonds referred to wild bananas as “jungle weeds”.

Suckers are thinned with a machete. The sucker pseudo stem is cut off near its corm and the point of the machete is twisted in the growing tip, thus killing it.

An excess of suckers can lead to reduced bunch weight, especially in ratoon crops. The number of suckers that are allowed to develop and mature is managed by pruning (desuckering).

Considerations such as the evenness of the crop and the position of the sucker in relation to the direction of the row and in relation to the bunch on the parent plant influence the selection of the follower in commercial plantations of Cavendish cultivars. Suckers can also be managed to time harvesting to meet market demands.

Read Also: Required Spacing for Plantain Cultivation

N. Roux, Bioversity International

Types of Plantain / Banana Suckers

(Image Description: Sword sucker (left) and water sucker (right) (photo by C. Staver, Bioversity)

The sucker appears above the soil and its state is characterised in part by its appearance. Initially, suckers have only leaf sheaths without a midrib or lamina. In horticultural terminology they are called peeper suckers.

Some remain at this stage without further growth. Others continue to grow and produce leaves with a midrib and a very narrow lamina. They are then called sword suckers. Sword suckers gradually produce leaves whose laminae are broad and of the adult form (see photo).

The sucker selected to replace the parent plant is called the follower or ratoon.  Sometimes, ratoon suckers that have not fruited are referred to as maiden suckers, although this term is poorly defined, and it can be difficult to determine whether a sucker at this stage is vegetative or contains an unemerged bunch.

Lateral buds may survive on sections of the rhizome after the aerial stems of earlier generations have decayed. Suckers that arise from these lateral buds usually have a small rhizome and broad leaves. They are called water suckers and their connection to the rhizome is often structurally weak.

For this reason, water suckers are not suitable for selection as a ratoon to continue the life of the mat into the next generation. However, water suckers can still be a source of planting material to establish a new plantation. Oppenheimer and Gottreich compared sword and water suckers, excised from the parent plant and of equivalent height at planting. For plants that flowered at the same time, bunches from sword suckers and water suckers were of a similar size.

Read Also: Selecting the site for Plantain Cultivation