Bananas are planted in a regularly spaced manured pits and in
combination with grass and banana mulch application to
enhance soil fertility and moisture and improve crop
production.
Banana is planted in a manure pit and the soil surface is carefully covered by banana or
grass mulch. The manured pit is 0.6m deep and 2.0-2.0m wide.
During establishment activities pits are filled with a mixture of soil and organic manure.
Attention should be made when adding the mixed soil to the pits as a radius of 20 cm starting from the
center of the pit where the banana is planted must not be filled with the mixture but filled merely with soil.This will assure that banana roots grow deeper in search for the
nutrients.
Recommended parallel and perpendicular spacing between the banana planting pits is 5m.
Banana manured pits and mulch application is a combination of an agronomic and structural technique. This method allows nutrients to be concentrated around the roots zone and keeps longer the available soil water content and controls the soil erosion.
The banana manure pits and mulching provides easy crop management options.
The high demand of water and nutrients by banana can be easily met to maximize the fruiting potential. To achieve this potential, farmers are required to maintain a minimum of 3 plants per pit, one mature (grand) banana plant fruiting, a second half
grown (mother), and one sucker (child) growing in the same pit.
Every four months a farmer is expected to harvest a bunch of banana of around 80 kg per pit.
The constituted layer of mulch prevents rainwater from eroding the top soil, improves soil organic carbon, provides shade to plant roots, and most importantly keeps longer soil moisture in dry seasons
