My SDC sent out pups quite often. Also when the main plant died it was quickly replaced with 3 or 4 pups. The pups can be removed but you need to wait until they reach a certain size for the best success. Your best bet is to do a search on this forum for removing pups. There are a lot of really good write-ups which will tell you exactly how to go about this.

Ray you bring up some good questions about the pups. I guess you need to ask yourself what your goal is. If you want to increase your plant population, then I think seperating the pups and relocating is the thing to do.

Other reasons to move/remove pups is to control patch density. If your bananas are a sort of focal point in the yard, then a couple of plant will look better than 12 growing over eachother.

Pups also take energy away from the parent. Commercial growers will cut them back to increase banana out-put.

Harvesting pups is easy. Let them grow to about 2 ft tall. Use a shovel to dig out around the pup a bit, saving the area between the pup and the plant for last. Once the pup is loosened up a bit, the final cut is between the pup and the parent. They are connected here. So you want to cut down and slightly angle into the parent. Ideally you want to dig out just a bit of the parent crom when you do this.

For a 2ft pup, we're talking about digging 6in round hole by 8inches deep. Don't worry about the roots. Any roots that are broken will quickly grow back.

It seems dauting, but is very simple. Fact is, even if you mess it up a bit, the banana pup will probably be fine. I've never killed one.

Good luck!

Hey Nightrider
My Banana Plant in actually potted and will remain that way.