What are your temps like? The pups should not affect the mother plant. My banana pups don't, neither do any of the ones I see around me. The pups should actually have roots, and not take things from the mother plant. The new leaf not unfolding, and turning brown means something wrong. Do you have some pics?

No. I went ahead and cut off the mother plant because it looked bad. The sucker plants look great. Here is a pic of them.
{{gwi:411881}}

Actually the suckers do not start with roots and absolutely do take energy from the mother up to a certain point. Most of the time pups aren't produced unless the plant is healthy enough to support them and should not be a problem. However sometimes I think pups are produced when the mother is stressed and is securing it's replacement. Whichever the cause is I have seen plants pup heavily and then go on to remain productive but I have also seen plants pup heavily and then decline. They usually recover eventually but it's a matter of how long you want to tolerate the bad looking plant.

US Marine,
Good to see another ole Marine playing around in a garden!
USMC 1975-1978 Camp Geiger 2531

sfhellwig,
Thanks for info. I cut off one of the smaller suckers and am trying to see if I can grow it in a container.