VLADIVOSTOK/YAROSLAVL, February 13 Bananas in Russia can be grown in greenhouse conditions, but on an industrial scale it will be expensive and unpromising, said the heads of the Botanical Gardens of Vladivostok and Kaluga.
Supplies of bananas to Russia from Ecuador, their traditional and main supplier, have decreased after Rosselkhoznadzor limited supplies from five exporters from this country due to a dangerous pest — the humpback fly. At the same time, the first deliveries of bananas to the Russian Federation from India began and, according to data, the country can completely replace Ecuadorian products on the Russian market. Indonesian producers also declare their readiness to supply bananas to the Russian market.
As the director of the Botanical Garden-Institute of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Vladivostok), Doctor of Biological Sciences Pavel Krestov, said, growing bananas in Russia on an industrial scale will be unreasonably expensive.
«Everything can be grown in space. But the question is the cost. A banana requires a long period of time for fruit formation — almost a year. All this time, greenhouses must be heated, that is, throughout the winter. The area that will be required (for industrial cultivation — ed.), large. It will be very expensive,” Krestov noted.
According to him, Russia had experience in industrial cultivation of lemons. “This is a Pavlovian lemon, it was intended for a narrow circle of the nobility. Even Tolstoy had greenhouses with lemons on his property. But the lemon is less demanding than a banana. And there were no such experiments with bananas in Russia,” the scientist said.
He noted that to grow bananas, the constant temperature must be at least 15 degrees. Even in the southern regions of our country it will not grow without a greenhouse. For example, in Sochi, a banana quickly grows, but does not survive the winter.
“We need tropics, stability: so that the sun is at its zenith every day, so that it is constantly humid and warm. Therefore, it is unlikely that in Russia it will be possible to grow bananas in such a way as to fill the market,” Krestov noted.
Head of the Botanical Garden of Kaluga State University named after K.E. Tsiolkovsky Evgeniy Konstantinov said that bananas grow well in greenhouses, but growing them on an industrial scale is unpromising.
“Bananas are very popular in greenhouses and botanical gardens because they are not demanding, at least in a greenhouse climate, they grow willingly and well. These are fast-growing plants, because at optimal temperatures 10-11 months are enough to harvest from them And they reproduce very easily,” Konstantinov explained.
That is, in general, bananas need any closed ground in combination with good lighting and temperature — at least above 15-18 degrees, as well as the necessary humidity, the interlocutor noted. However, despite these simple conditions, banana is not a promising plant for growing on an industrial scale, the head of the botanical garden emphasized.
“In Russian conditions, these are only greenhouses. And with the height of a banana — at least two to two and a half meters — it is probably not profitable to occupy such volumes with a not so productive plant. The costs of lighting and heating will sharply increase prices, and the banana will simply be an uncompetitive fruit «, noted Konstantinov.
He also said that bananas had already been harvested in the botanical garden twice — and they tasted better than in the store.
«Because in the store they ripen in a box while they are traveling, and ours are from the garden and from the branch. The first variety we had were short-fruited bananas, which are the most expensive in our chain stores and the sweetest. And the second is the Alanya variety «, from the south of Turkey, these are large full-sized bananas. We had 11 of them in the second harvest,» Konstantinov said.
According to him, the second harvest fell in August. Bananas were cut “like sausage,” the scientist noted, and were treated to those who were not on vacation, as well as to students who came for a retake.