Banana Tree Woes

HI! I have a beautiful banana tree which is dying?? The leaves are turning quite brown almost a rust color? Does it need copper?

Ms. Berly West Baker


Anne’s Response:

I'm not sure what kind of banana tree you have or the conditions under which it is living. My experience with bananas in Hawaii is that the mother plant usually dies after it has produced blooms or fruit. It is essentially a biannual in that it grows one year, produces the second year then produces an offset that continues the life of the plant. The leaves do turn brown. Musa paradistiaca (the commercial fruiting babana) is also subject to damage by fungus and bacterial infections which would cause leaves to turn brown. The ornamental dwarf bananas (M. nana) have problems with root rot nematodes as well . A copper deficiency is probably not the cause of the problem.