Plan Your Harvest: Delineating Specific Fruit Uses of Cardaba Banana (Musa acuminata x balbisiana) Through Phenological Characterization During Bunch Development and Fruit Ripening Stages

As the top producer and exporter of banana chips, Philippine Cardaba banana industry promises high profitability. Local farmers need to establish management operations that will allow them to cater consumers' needs. This requires farmers to understand fruit development and factors affecting production to forecast harvest date and quantity and quality of yield. In the Philippines, there is limited study on fruit development and post-harvest behaviour of Cardaba banana. Thus, this study aimed to describe and analyze the bunch development of Cardaba banana using the Biologische Bundesantalt, Bundessortenamt und Chemische Industrie (BBCH) scale for Musaceae and to assess the fruit quality of Cardaba banana using biochemical analysis and colorimetric index ((CI 1-CI 6). Bunch development follows a double sigmoidal pattern with phenophases (PS) 63-65 during flowering and PS 75-79 during fruit development. Bunch development took an average of 136.5 days from emergence with 37.4 days and 99.5 days for flowering and fruit development stages, respectively. Accumulated growing degree days (GDD) of Cardaba banana from inflorescence emergence to physiological maturity was 2269.6 degrees Cd. In this study, the most suitable ripening stage for banana chip production is mature green (CI 1), whereas CI 1 and light green (CI 2) are for flour production. For desserts and vinegar production, yellow with green tips (CI 5) and full yellow bananas (CI 6) are preferred, respectively. More yellow than green bananas (CI 4) and CI 5 are the best source of dietary fiber. The use of temperature-limited model relying on simulated projected daily temperature and GDD as a criterion/determinant for optimum harvest date estimation of banana fruits were utilized for the development of BanaTech while ripening stages was used to establish suitable indices for specific fruit use, either for fresh consumption or fruit processing.