Banana Seeds

If you take a random banana bought from the supermarket and slice it open, you're least likely to find seeds in it. And even if you find seeds in it, they'll be extremely tiny, such that at most times you don't even feel them while eating. If on the other hand you take a wild banana and slice it open, you'll not only find seeds in it, but they'll be rather huge. Why does that happen? Different species of bananas will produce different kind of seeds. The edible bananas that usually have no seeds are specially cultivated bananas. While those species that have seeds are usually the wild banana plants. What is the difference between the different species of the banana plants and why are there only a few plants that generate seeds?

Different Species of Bananas

There are several myths surrounding the concept of banana seeds and how to get a plant to generate from these. There are about a thousand species of bananas like yellow, green and red bananas and depending on the way in which they were cultivated, they are either seedless or with seeds. An interesting fact about banana plants is that the plants that are used for growing the edible bananas are especially cultivated and the wild species (plantains), that which grow naturally, have a lot of wild seeds in them and very little flesh. The wild banana seeds are huge and hard and even though there is flesh in the plantain, it is bitter and does not make for very delectable eating. Therefore the only bananas that can be eaten raw are the ones that are especially cultivated so that there are no seeds and a lot of flesh.

Plantains are also used for consumption but these need to be cooked before they can be used, since the water content is lower than the other species and therefore more starchy. The seeds are only found in the wild species of these flowering plants.

Planting the Seeds

While many of you will want to know how to plant banana seeds, it is important to understand that the bananas that are used for consumption cannot be produced by planting these seeds in the ground. In order to understand the concept of how the banana fruit is produced, we must look through the details of the banana plant:

• The banana plant starts growing from a rhizome or a bud or a ground stem.
• It grows to form leaves that are entwined tightly and look like a trunk, but are fleshy and soft and have no wood.
• New leaves make way through the middle of this cluster and form leaves that make their way out.
• When it is time to form the fruits, an inflorescence is formed which has flowers on it. These flowers are formed not due to pollination but due to asexual reproduction. The female and the male parts are present on the same branch.
• The flowers will slowly give way to fruits that hang from the cluster and bend towards the ground due to their heavy weight.
• A single bud can only produce a single bunch of fruits in one season and therefore the leaves and the trunk will wilt away.
• However during this process there are other buds that have made their way underground and therefore they will rise into a new plant.
• One can therefore use the shoots and stems of an existing plant to give rise to a new plant and then concentrate on banana plant care.

In case of the wild species, it is possible to plant them using these wild seeds. Once these seeds are planted, the plants grow and then go on to produce fruits through the regular process of pollination.

Even though you might find banana seeds for sale, there is hardly any point in purchasing them as these will not help in procuring for you a banana plant that produces edible fruit.