VietNamNet Bridge - As the largest banana variety in Vietnam, with a length of more than 30 cm, and weight of 0.5 kg, a specialty fruit shop in HCM City can sell one banana for VND20,000 ($1).

A specialty fruit shop on Ngo Tat To Street, Binh Thanh District, has just offered this species, which has an odd name “ta qua”. The shop manager said that this variety comes from Cau Ke district of the southern province of Tra Vinh. This is one of the specialties in the province, and is very rare. This store was able to buy only 20-30 bananas/batch.

“Ta qua” bananas are usually boiled and then put into the fridge to have good taste.

Previously, this kind of banana was grown by farmers in Tra Vinh for themselves only, but now, due to increased market demand, many farmers have been commercializing this species.

According to farmers, it is hard to find enough seedlings to develop a big garden of giant bananas because each mature tree only yields 1-2 shoots that can grow into seedlings.

Mr. Tai, a farmer in Cau Ke district, Tra Vinh, said that to have enough seedlings, he brought giant banana trees to the local fruit institute, where scientists applied tissue technology to create good seedlings.

Tai said the seedlings need eight months to develop flowers and three months to bear fruit. Each bunch of giant bananas consists of only 20-30 bananas and the size depends on the technique used by farmers.

According to Tai, though the price for this variety of banana is high, he cannot earn high profits because it develops very slowly, with  low output.

My Linh