Talk:Banana

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Banana has been listed as one of the Agriculture, food and drink good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

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Date	Process	Result
January 7, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
December 9, 2006	Good article reassessment	Delisted
July 19, 2024	Good article nominee	Listed

Current status: Good article

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Growth rate

Latest comment: 3 days ago3 comments3 people in discussion

The article states that the maximum growth rate is up to 1.6 meters per day, with a cite leading to a book which does not appear to be available. This is an extraordinary claim, which would leave bananas as by far the fastest known growing organism. ~2026-43178-06 (talk) 17:05, 5 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

The 'growth' is actually the unfurling of already-long rolled-up new leaves, so the claim is not quite as dramatic as you suggest; it does not for example imply the sudden development of 1.6 metres' worth of new cells at the top of the plant in one day, which would indeed be remarkable. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:18, 5 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

That is indeed what the book states. Here is the full table from pp. 149-150:

Figures after Meyer 1964, Oppenheimer and Pincussen 1929
Plant species and organ	Growth speed
Asparagus, shoot	0.08 mm/min = 11.1 cm/day
Autumn crocus, pollen tubes	0.015 mm/min = 2.16 cm/day
Bamboo, shoot	0.4 mm/min = 57 cm/day
Banana, leaf sheath	1.1 mm/min = 160 cm/day
Broad bean, radicle	0.012 mm/min = 1.7 cm/day
Bryony, shoot	0.056 mm/min = 8 cm/day
Hemp, sprout	0.05 mm/min = 7.2 cm/day
Ink cap, fruiting body stalk	0.22 mm/min = 31.4 cm/day
Mold (Mucor), hyphae	0.026 mm/min = 3.74 cm/day
Oats, coleoptile	0.025 mm/min = 3.7 cm/day
Pea, root	0.02 mm/min = 2.88 cm/day
Pumpkin, shoot	0.1 mm/min = 14.4 cm/day
Rye, filaments (max. unwinding time, 10 min)	2.5 mm/min
"Veiled" mushroom (Dictyophora), fruiting body (max. unwinding time, 15 min)	5 mm/min

~ oklopfer (💬︎) 17:46, 5 August 2026 (UTC)Reply