GA3, indole-butyric acid, niacin, potassium nitrate, there's a whole bunch of seed germination accelerators/facilitators, along with precise temperature and moisture control.

With your bad banana germination experience, and mine, I suggest you do like me, and buy young banana plants. :)

Hello unauture,
I do, I do, but the choice of species is so much bigger with seed included. A lot of species are just nog that easy to get as a plant here. And on top of that : others do seem to manage succesfully sowing bananas. The price also plays a role; If I have to buy (import) a Ensete superbum (1 plant) is much more expencive then sowing 100 plants. If it's possible to boost germinationrates, that would be superb!

Hey Griphuz;
The easiest seeds to germinate are, in my experience, seeds from ensete species. Other bananas are easy if you alternate temps.
Did you buy the ensete seeds at the bananatree dot com? I bought a batch from them last year (100 seeds), and almost all germinated. This year, I tried to repeat the success, so I bought 100 more seeds of ensete ventricosum and 100 of ensete glaucum. All of the glaucum sprouted but not a single ventricosum sprouted. So I think maybe this years batch at this company might not be so good. Try a different seed source for ensete ventricosum. But no disrespect to this company I am referring to, they usually have good seeds and great service.

Erlend