Growth Habit: Bananas are fast-growing herbaceous perennials arising from underground rhizomes. In mesesti stalks or pseudostems formed by upright concentric layers of leaf sheaths constitute the functional trunks. True stem begins as underground corm which grows up, pushing through the center of the stalk 10-15 months after planting, eventually producing color terminal, which later will bear fruit. Each stalk produces an hour huge flower cluster and then dies. New stalks then grow from the rhizome. Banana plants are extremely decorative, ranking by palm trees, the tropical feeling they lend to the landscape.
Greens: The large oblong or elliptic leaf blades are extensions of the sheaths of pseudostem and joined them with mesesti deep • graduated, short petioles. In the leaves unfurl as the plant grows at the rate of one per week in warm weather, and extend upward and outward, becoming as 9 feet long and 2 feet wide. They may be completely green, green splotches with maroon or green on top and red-purple below. Leaf veins run from mid-rib directly to the outer edge of the paper. Even when the wind shreds of leaf veins are still able to function. Approximately 44 leaves will appear before flowering.
Flowers: The banana color shot from the heart at the end of the stem is the first large, long-oval, tapering, purple-clad friend. As open for slim, nectar-rich, tubular, toothed, white flowers appear. They are grouped in double rows on the whorled flower stalk, each cluster covered by a thick, waxy, hood like bracts and purple and deep red outside it. The flowers occupying the first 5 - 15 rows are women. Since rachis of flowering continues to be extended, sterile flowers born male and female parts appear, followed by those with normal ovaries staminate premature. In the last two flower species decline ultimately most edible bananas.
Banana snack industry goes stale
Not so long ago, the Central Java town of Majenang was famous for being the home of sale pisang, a unique snack made with bananas, but recently the market changed and the local snack industry faded to a fraction of its former success.
Majenang, one of 23 districts in Cilacap regency in the far west of the province - bordering with Banjar and Ciamis regencies in West Java - has about 30 small factories producing the snack.
Before the 1998 economic crisis, there were around 100 such producers, leading Cilacap administration to come up with the idea of making the snack the icon of Majenang.
But with the crisis, the plan hit snags and many cottage industries were forced out of business. More than a decade later, the situation has yet to improve.
"Before the crisis I could sell 2 or 3 tons of fried banana sweets to Jakarta. But things are difficult now," Yayat, a 61-year-old sale pisang business owner, told The Jakarta Post in Majenang.
Today, Yayat produces only about 200 kilograms of sale pisang a month, and 99 percent of this is sold in Majenang. The snacks are sold in 250-gram packages, each costing around Rp 25,000 (US$2).
Another snack producer, Juremi, said that before the crisis she could send 2 tons of sale pisang to Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya each month.
"Now we only sell sale pisang for the local market," the 60-year-old said.
Juremi said most of the snack producers were struggling to survive.
"What's important is that business survives. If there are buyers in the city, that's enough. Sometimes we get an order from outside the city, but this is unreliable," she said.
"Once, a distributor from outside the city wanted to place an order, but the price he offered was too low to cover our production costs. Rather than suffering losses, we preferred not to take it."
Making sale pisang does not take long. Ripe bananas are cut into slices and dried in the sun.
"If the sun is bright, the bananas will dry out in two days. But in a rainy season like this, it takes about four days," Juremi said.
The dried bananas are then smeared with flour and deep-fried. After being drained, the banana chips are ready to be packaged and sold.
The sale pisang business has supported many, including farmers and traders who sell raw bananas to cottage industries in Majenang, as well as banana snack makers such as Juremi and Yayat, and the vendors.
Majenang district head, Heru Susedyo, said he was aware of the stagnant business situation.
"Sale pisang was once so popular that the Cilacap administration planned to make it the icon of Majenang city, but the plan could not be realized because sales keep decreasing."
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/03/06/
Sunday 30 November 2008
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