CHAPTER VI 



PRUNING AND TREATMENT OF SUCKERS. 



REASONS FOR PRUNING. METHOD. CHOOSING 



AND TIMING. PRUNING LEAVES 



PRUNING AND TREATMENT OF SUCKERS 



Reasons for Pruning. Pruning away such suckers as are 

 not intended to yield fruit is a most important operation. 

 It should be done when the sucker is not more than one or 

 two feet high. The larger the sucker grows, the more 

 food material it abstracts from the parent bulb, and the 

 more its young roots interfere with the root system of the 

 plant, in both ways injuring the future bunch. 



It has been suggested that the plan of constantly pruning 

 the banana, in order to suit the market, must do serious 

 injury to the plant. But a little consideration will show 

 that this idea is erroneous. Plants of the type of the 

 banana throw out numerous suckers, and also produce 

 fruit. Thus reproduction is provided for in two ways 

 by vegetative multiplication and by fruit. If the vegeta- 

 tive energy is prevented from dissipating itself in suckers, 

 there is all the more of that energy to be expended on 

 producing new leaves for the plant itself. New leaves 

 mean more food accumulated in the storehouse the bulb 

 and available at the proper time for the production of an 

 increased number of hands to the bunch. The suckers are 

 rivals and competitors of the mother plant in getting food 

 material from the soil. They do not help the mother 

 plant, but are partly fed by it, and partly steal its nourish- 

 ment in the soil. The more suckers there are in existence 



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