When the fruits are ready for harvesting, the plant is cut down. The heavy banana clusters are cut off and carefully carried to a conveyor system which transports the bananas very gently to the packing station.

Banana plants are actually giant herbaceous plants that look like trees. The plants grow from a multitude of roots called rhizomes. One of these is selected to produce the next generation of banana plants. If you visit a banana plantation you will see that each plant produces three shoots. There is a mature shoot which is harvested after several weeks, a sucker which takes the place of the main plant after harvest, and another shoot which does not fruit but supplies nutrients to the young plants. This cycle can repeat itself for 25 to 30 years without new banana plants having to be planted manually.

Black Sigatoka, a fungal disease caused by aggressive spores, attacks banana leaves and can destroy a banana plantation in a matter of weeks. Organic production methods cannot respond as quickly and strongly to an infection. It is not an easy task. See how the disease is managed and controlled.

The priority in organic farming is first and foremost to keep the soil healthy. It is the best guarantee for a high quality crop. Firstly all the organic matter generated on the farm is used to produce our own compost. Then the plant’s nutritional needs are completed by using organic fertilizers to reach the optimum soil quality.

Controlling weeds on an organic farm does not happen with any product. It is a manual process that needs to be conducted every 4 to 6 weeks and keeps the soil and plants healthy.

Through cell division, banana plants produce leaves that develop into a pseudostem and produce fruit. The bud forms in the bottom part of the plant and grows up through the centre of the pseudostem to the top. The arrow-shaped bud pushes through the top of the plant and its weight then causes it to change direction and grow towards the ground. Bananas go through a unique process known as negative geotropism. Instead of continuing to grow towards the ground, they start to turn towards the sun. The fruit grows against gravity, giving the banana its familiar curved shape. But why? The answer lies in the botanical history of the banana. It originated in the middle layer of the rainforest, where there is little sunlight. If the fruit were to grow towards the small amount of light that penetrates sideways through the vegetation, the plant could overbalance and topple over. So bananas developed a way of growing towards the light without destabilising the plant.