Evaluation of practices associated with the removal of flowers, lateral or central fruits and/or first hand in the banana bunch

Abstract

Practices associated with banana bunch management were evaluated in the Caribbean of Costa Rica during 2011 in 6 experiments. These were, 1 and 2: with (control) and without deflowering; 3 and 4: without (control) and with central fruit cluster in lower hand; 5 and 6: a-removal of 3 lower hands and / or tunnel (first hand), b-removal of the first hand and 2 lower hands, and c-removal of 2 lower hands, conformation of fruit cluster (lower hand) and tunnel (first hand). Production and performance variables were measured. Experiments testing deflowering and fruit cluster showed no differences (p>0.0620) in production variables between treatments. Neither in experiments 5 and 6, except for bunch weight (p<0.0450), fruit thickness (p>0.0109, first and fourth hand, experiment 5) and fruit length (p=0.0443; second hand, experiment 5); no differences (p>0.0804) were found in the remainder variables. Rejection components did not differ between treatments (p<0.0652) except for growth scar (p=0.0353; experiment 2) and fresh injury (p=0.0192; experiment 6). Exportable performance was similar (p>0.5750) between deflowering treatments. In experiment 3 bunches with fruit cluster showed higher export yield (p<0.0045) first quality performance (p<0.0007). In experiments 5 and 6 no differences (p<0.0612) were detected between treatments. Although in many cases the differences did not reach statistical significance on exportable fruit, these represent an important increase in those bunches with fruit cluster.