Health On Fruits.

Banana plants thrive naturally on deep, loose, well-drained  in humid tropical climates, and they are grown successfully under in such semiarid regions as southern Jamaica. Suckers and divisions of the rhizome are used as planting material; the first crop ripens within 10 to 15 months, and thereafter fruit production is more or less continuous. Frequent is required to remove surplus growth and prevent crowding in a banana plantation. Desirable commercial bunches of bananas consist of nine hands or more and weigh 22–65 kg (49–143 pounds). Three hundred or more such bunches may be produced annually on one acre of land and are harvested before they fully ripen on the plant. For export, the desired degree of maturity attained before harvest depends upon distance from market and type of transportation, and ripening is frequently induced artificially after shipment by exposure to gas.