Update on my mini-farm: double bunch and splitting stem plantain

A few weeks ago, I made a post about the effort I am investing into planting my own foods to the best of my ability. One of the motivating factors is the cutthroat prices of foods. One can also be assured of the safety of whatever he is eating. Of course, it is not that I can plant everything I need.

It was that a few weeks ago I planted the two young plantains in the image above. They have already got acclimatized to their new environment and are now in the rapid growth phase. I am not expecting them to reach the maturity and fruiting stage this year. Until next year, if everything goes well.

I planted some maize too at the same time. However, many of the maize seedlings got attacked by rodents and did not make it to the maturity stage. I only got a few stands left. Harvesting should be in a couple of weeks.

In addition to maize, some stands of cocoyam can also be seen growing on the farm. These, I did not plant deliberately. They are relics of previous farming activities on the land long before I took over. I just decided not to get rid of them. They are also food, after all.

Lastly, as evident from the image above, I planted some sweet potato stems on the same farmland. Sweet potato plants grow as crawlers on the ground, so I thought planting them as a form of cover crop will help reduce the rate at which I will be weeding the farm. This has actually worked as thought so far. I have decided to exclude the use of herbicides on my farm for ecological and health reasons.

The above is an image of one of the plantain suckers I planted last year. Some daughter plants have emanated from the side. Ordinarily, these young suckers should have been removed and transplanted somewhere else.

The fact that the main plant is yet to fruit has been delaying the move. If the young suckers are removed, it may cause the mother plant to be uprooted by the slightest wind. The transplanting of the young suckers will surely be done after the fruiting and harvesting of the mother. I expect that to happen this year.

The image above is that of a plantain I planted the same day as the one in the preceding image. They are a group of thriving young suckers. The mother plant got destroyed by rain some weeks back. Since then, the young suckers have flourished, since resources are more abundant than before.

The two images above are of two plants planted last year. I have been expecting them to bring out fruits for a while now. Instead, it appears their stems just split into two while the main plants do. I genuinely do not know what the problem could be.

I tried searching the web for what the problem could be. The closest answer I found is below:

Plant stems can split during periods of rapid growth and fertility as the plant absorbs large amounts of water and nutrients. Splits also occur after periods of drought when the plant takes in a lot of water through the xylem causing the tubular structure to swell and burst through the bark. source

I doubt if this is the reason for the splitting which has now affected two plants that out to be fruiting. I also read up on the different diseases of the plant in the hope that I will come across one that makes the plant behave this way. All to no avail.

I then remember vividly that the mother plant where I got some of the suckers I planted last year produced two bunches of plantain fruit at once. I quickly went back to the location to see if I can still see a plant with double bunches of fruits. Luckily, I got one whose image is below:

Could it be that the stems are splitting due to this double bunch trait? Notice that the stem here does not appear to have split. The double bunch thing is considered a mutation that leads to the evolution of a new genotype.

Fortunately, I saw a paper that talks about double-bunch plantain. Unfortunately, the paper is behind a paywall. Here is what the abstract says:

In the course of germplasm exploratory work, a strain of a False Horn plantain cultivar was found which produced two bunches at fruiting. Cropping of the suckers of this material through three cycles showed that all the plants studied, produced two bunches of fruits. The results suggest that this plantain tentatively designated as a “double bunch”, is of genetic origin arising probably from a mutation of the existing plantain cultivar. The implications for the identification of genetic diversity as well as for the evaluation and conservation of genetic resources are discussed. source

Perhaps the paper will address this stem-splitting issue.

What do you think?