A while ago I had written about the banana collection at the student farm program I help run here at the University of Hawaii. We have been working very hard and have some new updates I'd like to share.
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Our main collection is out at the colleges research station in a rural area, which is very nice land to grow on, but too far away for the students to have easy access too. It is also prone to theft, and typically we get about 60% of our bananas stolen which would normally be for our sales and our own consumption.
To solve this problem (and others), we are relocating much of our activities on-campus. In this way, we can monitor the plants easier and more students can get involved and learn how to cultivate bananas. Since campus security is present at all times, we are hoping for less problems with theft.
Having grown and sold many varieties from our previous collection, we have been able to narrow it down a little bit to the cultivars which grow best and are most popular among our customers, while still maintaining some new cultivars to test out.
We worked hard and got permission to turn a (less than aesthetically pleasing) lawn into a banana patch. The plants are have only been in the ground for about 4 months, but already they are drawing lots of attention and interest.