Glossary of Banana Farming Terms

A#

Acuminata — Musa acuminata, one of the two wild banana species underlying nearly all cultivated bananas. Genome symbol A. Contributes sweetness and dessert quality.

Alkaline — Soil with pH above 7.5. Causes iron, zinc and boron to become unavailable even when present.

Anther — The pollen-bearing part of the flower; in cultivated bananas it is vestigial and produces no viable pollen.

Apical bud — The single growing point inside the top of the corm, from which the pseudostem and its leaves arise. Damage to it kills that stem.

Apical dominance — The suppression of side shoots by the growing tip. Removing a stem releases suckers from this dominance.

Asynchronous — Uneven development within a block: plants flowering or ripening at different times. Makes harvest and packing harder.

B#

Bacterial wilt — Collective name for lethal bacterial diseases of banana: Moko (Ralstonia solanacearum) and Xanthomonas wilt (Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum). No cure; destroy and disinfect.

Balbisiana — Musa balbisiana, the second wild species. Genome symbol B. Contributes starch, hardiness, drought and cold tolerance.

Bihile — A narrow, chisel-like hand tool used to remove banana suckers by cutting through the corm.

Black Sigatoka — Pseudocercospora fijiensis. The most economically damaging foliar disease of banana; dark feathery lesions that destroy leaf area. Also called Black Leaf Streak.

Blight — Rapid and extensive death of plant tissue, usually from an aggressive pathogen.

Bunch — The entire fruit-bearing structure hanging from a single stem, composed of hands.

Bunchy top virus (BBTV) — Lethal, incurable viral disease spread by the banana aphid. Diagnostic: narrow upright bunched leaves and dark vein streaking.

Burning — Control of old, heavily diseased or redundant stems by fire. Generally discouraged — it destroys organic matter and beneficials.

C#

Cavendish — The AAA dessert clone group accounting for the great majority of traded bananas. Subtypes include Williams, Grand Nain and Giant Cavendish.

CEC — Cation exchange capacity. A measure of how many nutrients the soil can hold. Low CEC means small, frequent fertiliser applications.

Chilling injury — Damage from temperatures below about 13 °C: grey pitted skin, failure to ripen evenly, poor flavour.

Cigar-end rot — Fungal rot at the distal end of the finger, appearing like a burnt cigar tip.

Climacteric — Fruit that undergoes a burst of respiration and ethylene production during ripening. Bananas are climacteric — they ripen after harvest.

Cleft — Splitting of finger skin, usually from water stress followed by rain, or over-maturity.

Corm — The true stem of the banana: a subterranean, swollen organ from which roots grow downward and suckers grow outward. The plant's perennial core.

Crown — The cut surface at the top of a hand where fingers attach to the stalk. The main entry point for crown-rot fungi.

Crown rot — Post-harvest fungal rot of the crown; the most common packhouse loss.

Cultivar — A cultivated variety. All bananas of a named cultivar are clones.

Curser — (not used on this site).

D#

De-handing — Removing hands from the bunch stalk at the packhouse.

Degreening — The colour change from green to yellow driven by ethylene in ripening fruit.

Desuckering — Removing unwanted suckers from a mat, keeping one (or two) designated stems.

De-leafing — Removing dead, dying or heavily diseased leaves from the pseudostem.

Determinate — A growth habit that ends in flowering. The banana stem is determinate: it produces leaves, then flowers, then dies.

Drip — Irrigation delivering small, frequent volumes directly to the root zone through emitters.

Dutch (not used on this site).

E#

EC (electrical conductivity) — A measure of dissolved salts in soil or water. Above about 1.0–2.0 dS/m banana yield declines.

Effective rainfall — The portion of rainfall actually stored in the root zone and available to the crop (commonly counted as 75% of an event above 5 mm).

Ethylene — A gaseous plant hormone that triggers and coordinates ripening in climacteric fruit.

ET₀ / ETc — Reference and crop evapotranspiration: water lost by a standard reference surface and by the crop respectively, in mm/day.

Export grade — Fruit meeting the size, shape, maturity and defect tolerances specified by a buyer or destination market.

F#

Female flowers — The flowers that develop into fruit, arranged in hands at the proximal end of the bunch.

Fertigation — Applying fertiliser dissolved in irrigation water.

Field ripening — Ripening on the plant, usually a sign of over-maturity and undesirable for commercial handling.

Finger — An individual banana fruit.

Floral transition — The internal conversion of the growing point from producing leaves to producing an inflorescence. Not visible from outside.

Foliar — Applied to leaves, as a spray.

Frass — Insect excrement and chewed material left by borers and caterpillars.

Fusarium wilt — Vascular wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense. Race 1 destroyed the Gros Michel industry; TR4 threatens all current cultivars.

G#

Grafting — Not applicable to bananas; they are propagated by suckers, division or tissue culture.

Grade-out — The percentage of harvested tonnage that meets each grade specification.

Green life — The period a green banana can be stored before it begins to ripen uncontrollably.

H#

Hand — A cluster of fingers attached at a single node of the bunch stalk.

HACCP — Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points: a systematic food-safety management framework.

Hardpan — A dense, impermeable layer in the soil profile that restricts roots and drainage.

Heat unit — Accumulated temperature used to predict development rate; bananas respond strongly to it.

Hydrocooling — Rapidly cooling produce by contact with chilled water.

I#

IPM — Integrated pest management: prevent, monitor, threshold, control, verify.

Interveinal — Between the leaf veins; a pattern used in deficiency diagnosis.

Intercropping — Growing another crop between the banana rows.

K#

Kc — Crop coefficient: a multiplier converting reference ET into crop water demand.

L#

Latex — The sticky sap released by cut surfaces. Sets hard, stains fruit and attracts pathogens.

Lateral — In irrigation, the pipe running along a row carrying emitters.

Leaf area index — Leaf area per unit of ground area. A banana canopy typically reaches 3–6.

Lesion — A discrete area of damaged or dead tissue.

Lower leaves — The oldest leaves on a pseudostem, where mobile nutrient deficiencies first appear.

M#

Maiden sucker — See sword sucker.

Mat — One corm plus all the suckers growing from it: the perennial unit of a banana planting.

Maturity index — A measure of harvest readiness: days after flowering, finger fullness, or a starch/iodine index.

Micro-sprinkler — A small irrigation emitter delivering 20–80 L/h in a circular pattern.

Minimum tillage — Seedbed preparation that avoids full inverting of the soil.

Moko — Bacterial wilt caused by Ralstonia solanacearum, important in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

MRL — Maximum residue limit: the legal ceiling for pesticide residues on produce.

Mulch — A protective layer of organic material over the soil surface.

Musa — The genus containing bananas and plantains: Musa acuminata (A) and Musa balbisiana (B).

N#

Nematode — Microscopic roundworm; root-feeding species cause major hidden losses in banana.

Nitrogen (N) — The nutrient driving leaf and pseudostem growth.

O#

Organic matter — Decomposed and decomposing material in soil. Target above 3% for banana.

P#

Panama disease — Common name for Fusarium wilt of banana.

Parthenocarpic — Fruit development without fertilisation. Cultivated bananas are parthenocarpic and seedless.

Peeper — A very small sucker emerging soon after the parent stem is harvested.

Petiole — The leaf stalk joining the leaf blade to the pseudostem.

PHI — Pre-harvest interval: the legally required gap between the last chemical application and harvest.

Phyllochron — The interval, in days, between the appearance of successive leaves.

Plantain — Large, starchy cooking bananas, usually AAB genome group.

Plant crop — The stems arising from the original planting, before ratooning begins.

Pseudostem — The apparent trunk, formed of tightly wrapped leaf sheaths. Contains no woody tissue.

Pupation trap — A soil-covered piece of pseudostem that concentrates weevil pupae for destruction.

Q#

Quarantine — Legal restriction on movement of plants, soil or material from a site with a regulated pest.

R#

Ratoon — A stem arising from the mat after the previous stem has been harvested. First, second, third ratoon follow the plant crop.

REI — Restricted-entry interval: the time after spraying during which workers must not enter the block.

Rhizome — Botanically equivalent to the corm in banana.

Root zone — The volume of soil actively exploited by roots; in banana mostly the top 40 cm.

S#

SAR — Sodium adsorption ratio; a measure of sodium hazard in irrigation water.

Sucker — A vegetative shoot arising from the corm.

Sucker banking — Holding prepared suckers in a nursery for later planting.

Sword sucker — A sucker with narrow, sword-like leaves and a large corm. The preferred planting material.

Suckering — The production or management of suckers.

Stub — The short piece of stalk left above the top hand after cutting the bunch.

T#

Tissue culture — Micropropagation of plantlets from meristem tissue under sterile laboratory conditions; produces clean, uniform planting material.

Tensiometer — A field instrument measuring soil moisture tension in kPa.

TR4 — Tropical Race 4 of Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense; attacks all commercially important cultivars including Cavendish.

Transplant shock — Growth check after moving a plant; minimised by trimming foliage, curing and prompt planting.

U#

Uniformity — Evenness of plant size, flowering and ripening across a block. A major driver of efficient harvesting and packing.

V#

Vegetative propagation — Reproduction without seed, using suckers, division or tissue culture.

Vinegar (not used on this site).

Virus streak — Banana streak virus, often integrated into the genome of some cultivars and expressed under stress.

W#

Water sucker — A sucker with broad, well-formed leaves and a thin corm. Not recommended for planting.

Wilting — Loss of turgor. May be reversible (drought) or a symptom of vascular disease.

Windbreak — A belt of trees or shrubs reducing wind speed across a field.

X#

Xanthomonas wilt — Bacterial wilt caused by Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum, important in East Africa.

Y#

Yellow Sigatoka — Pseudocercospora musae. The older, milder leaf-stripe disease, mainly affecting lower leaves.

Z#

Zinc (Zn) — Micronutrient whose deficiency produces small, pale, narrow leaves. Common in high-pH soils.

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