Hi all,
I have a small garden and at one place I have a bunch of banana plant. In last three months we have harvested from two of those banana trees.
Recently, one of the tree had bore fruit, and fruits were looking quite healthy. Then suddenly, we saw fruits getting prematurely ripe and then getting bad. On further observation we saw that most of the soft leaves were rot. We removed the fruit so that we can consume them as vegetable before they get too bad.
All the trees near by showed similar symptoms on leaves.
When we cut the tree by half, the center part of the trunk was full of water and it had very bad smell.
I have cut most of large trees (all were infected), and left smaller ones in the hope that some how they shall survive.
The issue does not appear to be due to pest, we did not notice anything mobile, it may be either fungi or some bacteria.
Have you seen this issue, what could be the possible reason and how can I fix it. Is there any pesticide I can try.
Dear sir
It appears stem borer has infected your crops.This is a black colour shiny insect who infects the stem and finishes the crops enmass. The remedy is to spread neem oil mixed pesticide or some other organic pesticide available in market.Pl spread the neem oil pesticied immediately on the other left over banana plants.The pesticied should go inside the stem from top.
rcdixit
Dixit is correct. Banana missing core is due to stem borer.
Banana farmer here use a deadly poison. with every emerging new leaf they add a small piece of the chemical. This is where they get into the core area of the banana.
this is a common problem with banana farmers.
The reason you don’t see them is they have done their job some time back. check your exiting healthy banana you should be able to locate a borer. check the attached file.
