September 3, 2025 — Finca Alazan Updates group
”It is so great that bananas and plantains are coming into production so nicely all over the farm. We will want to add banana and plantain babies, or hijos, to the ‘B’ rows in Phase 2 whenever it suits to do so. The ‘B’ rows are the rows with Mango, Avocado and Cacao.
The bananas and plantains are essential ‘placenta’ plants for the baby cacao. That’s the term in Syntropic ag for the helper/nurse plants that lead the way for later successional trees like cacao. The plantains will produce for years while the cacao mature and then be cycled out. The baby plantain starts will be relocated to other spots as needed. The young Cacao will thrive with their nurturing placentas in place.”
May 10, 2026
”I collected some beautiful plantain hijos from Greg and Becky’s driveway this morning and can’t wait to get them in the phase 2 garden beds. They will provide the essential Syntropic placenta that our young Cacao, Avocado, and Mango seedlings will need to get started. There are some good bananas at the ‘PM’ house site that Steve Quin has offered up as well.”
May 10, 2026
”That’s a great idea. You might have trouble getting bananas to grow in an established cacao orchard unless you open up some sun for them. Bananas typically precede cacao in successional dominance, so getting them to be happy after cacao is dominant would require a disturbance of sorts, like severe pruning of some trees. I like the idea of having such abundance in the system that the squirrel depredations become insignificant. Raptor perches might be another helpful gesture.
I think I posted about successional relationships before in this group. Because bananas naturally precede cacao in ecosystem succession, we use bananas as a placenta that nourishes and protects the succeeding little cacao trees. The beautiful group of cacao at Becky and Greg’s driveway entrance were started with plantain nurse plants. At the start that patch was a plantain orchard with baby cacao trees in it. Now it is a maturing stand of cacao. The cacao would not have survived without the plantains leading the way and protecting them. It’s beautiful that the plantains are productive and desirable in and of themselves.”
May 11, 2026
”Becky, those bananas downslope of your driveway are the plantains I have collected pups, o también se llaman hijos, from. They seem to be very healthy stands of Plátano, but the slope is quite steep and some trunks have fallen over and slid down. A disturbed slope like this is the natural niche for bananos y plátanos. They will do well, readily regrow after a tumble, and will like the available sun light. Plus they give plantains. They do help, but are not super great, at stabilizing steep slopes. You might consider planting something like vetiver which is legendary for its slope stabilization abilities. It could do well in the sunny slide zones and its high tensile strength roots will tend to hold the slope together. The Cacao trees are doing great and are beautiful to behold.”