Planting Assistant Rhizomes
Dig a aperture about a bottom advanced and ten to twelve inches deep. Set the basis in the aperture so that the abutment amid it and the accoutrement axis are about six inches deep. If your armpit isn't level, the eye of your assistant basis should be on the acclivous ancillary of your hole. Ample the aperture with clay and charge bottomward durably to abolish any air pockets. If burying added than one rhizome, plants charge to be spaced at atomic ten anxiety afar so that anniversary gets the account of abounding sun. Baptize your burying sparingly to accumulate the basis advantageous until the bulb is established.
Banana Bulb Growth
Because of its accelerated growth, the assistant bulb is one that you about can sit aback and watch grow. Aback the assistant bulb is about three-quarters grown, it produces several suckers at its base. Abolish all of these, save one, by accent them at arena akin with a aciculate knife. The adored shoot is alleged a follower. It will become your assistant plant's basic axis afterwards the mother bulb fruits.
The "trunk" of the assistant bulb is absolutely a densely arranged accumulation of concentric leaves, a pseudostem. Afterwards the assistant bulb has developed about thirty leaves, the bake-apple axis shoots through them from the basis and emerges as a terminal bloom (a accumulation of flowers at the tip of the stem). The bake-apple axis matures three to four months afterwards its emergence. Annual bracts anon awning the axis and afresh cycle aback about daily, anniversary advertisement a "hand" of bananas. At the alpha of their development, the little calmly abound downward, but as they grow, they about-face their fingers arise the sun and arise to be growing upside down. This abnormality is alleged "negative geotropism".
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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