Bananas


 * Bananas on The Island**

Bananas grow in abundance across The Island. The volcanic soils are ideal for growing bananas and combined with the warm temperatures and high rainfall, The Island is ideal for sustainable banana production.

Banana plants mature quickly, yielding their first bunch within 12 months, then one bunch on average every 8-12 months thereafter.

Sustainable banana plantations have been established in six locations on The Island as follows:

Port Plantation (within 2 km of The Port) - total of 2.5 hectares
 * Banana-Plants.jpg ||
 * Banana-Plants.jpg ||

Plantation A - located at B4 - 9.0 hectares Plantation B - located at C7 - 12.4 hectares Plantation C - located at C8 - 1.2 hectares Plantation D - located at C5 - 35.6 hectares Plantation E - located at B6 - 48.6 hectares

The plantations have all used standard planting patterns - all plants are grown in rows 3 metres apart, and spaced evenly every 1.5 metres along the rows.

Yields on The Island are excellent with each bunch weighing an average of 40 kg.

Current export prices for The Island bananas are $994/tonne.

So far The Island is free from any of the diseases that sometimes affect bananas. But there is a concern about the possibility of the recently imported hemp plants spreading the banana aphid. This little insect carries the BBTV or Banana Bunchy Top Virus. If it gets on the Island there are serious ramifications. The aphid life cycle is between 9-21 days, which means that every 20 days (when the aphids go through their winged life stage) a colony could spread.

**BANANA BUNCHY TOP:**

Banana bunchy top virus (BBTV) is one of the most serious diseases of banana. Once established, it is extremely difficult to eradicate or manage.

The initial symptoms of banana bunchy top virus consist of dark green streaks in the veins of lower portions of the leaf midrib and the leaf stem

The following was retrieved from the internet on the 19/08/11 from [|http://www.google.com.au/imgres?]




 * Banana Infestation Problem: **


 * There is one banana plant on The Port which has an aphid colony on it.**
 * One aphid colony on one plant will infest two other plants at that particular colony. Then those two will infest three, then the three will infest four, then the four will infest 5 and so on.**

In our location (B4) we have a 90 hectare banana plantation
 * Rows of bananas are 3 metres apart
 * There is a banana plant every 1.5 metres along the rows

1 hectare= 10,000 square metres 34 rows per hectare (0m = 1 row)(100 divide by 3 plus one for 0m)

**How many bananas in each row?** 100m divided by 1.5 = **75 bananas per row** 34 (**rows)** x 75**(bananas per row)** = **2,754 bananas per hectare**

2,754 x 90 = 247860 Therefore we have 247,860 banana plants in our plantation (B4)


 * How long it will take for all plants to become infested:**

If every 20 days the aphids fly and infest one more banana plant the rate would go as follows: **first infected plant** |||||||| 360 || 340 || 320 || 300 || 280 || 260 || 240 || 120 || 60 || 40 || 20 || 0 || **infected plants** || **247860** || 131072 || 65536 || 32768 || 16384 || 8192 || 4096 || 64 || 8 || 4 || 2 || 1 ||
 * **Days since**
 * **Number of**

**Therefore it will take 360 days for our whole plantation to be infested.**

**Impact on the Economy:** The expanding population of the island depends significantly on its ability to trade and export goods. Due to this, the Banana Bunchy Top Virus will affect the Island in a great deal. However, seems as though this has been brought to our attention sooner rather than later it will not be 'the end' of The Island. Even though the virus spreads rapidly and it is near to impossible to create a different form of trade which will be as successful, our Island does not solely rely on the exportation of bananas for income. Our Island has such a vast Tourism Industry that the decline in banana exportation will not lead us to debt. Yes, our economy will experience a slight fall, however our Government will be working extremely hard to ensure our Tourism Industry continues to increase and expand to ensure we can cover the loss of income due to the BBTV affects.

$994 per tonne of bananas 40kg of bananas per plant


 * 40 x 247,860 = 9,914,400 kg annually (40kg per 12 months)**


 * The BBTV will have a slight impact on our Island, however it is nothing our Government cannot handle.**