Banana trees

Question

I have several dwarf banana trees. They are producing several hands. However, they start out nice looking, then start to get black speckles all over them. The ends turn black and the bunch does not produce many bananas because the ends start rotting, too. They also split open before they are ripe. Is there anything I can put on them that will stop the disease process and still allow us to safely eat the fruit?

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Answer 1

This might be a disease called Cigar End Rot. It is caused by fungi Verticillium theobromae or Trachysphaera fructigena, which infects the end of each fruit and causes rot and eventually splitting. Here is more information about it:

http://www.plantwise.org/KnowledgeBank/Datasheet.aspx?dsid=54408
http://tcbanana.blogspot.com/2012/01/fungal-disease-pre-post-harvest-cigar.html