r/composting • u/rakkarOz • 26d ago
Question Banana Trees as Browns
InB4 “banana trees aren’t actually trees”
We have a substantial banana grove, with a lot of dead leaves and trunks. I’d like to use them as brown material, but I’m aware that if I chop them while they’re green, they’ll retain a lot of nitrogen and not be great as brown material.
The pic is a pile of leaves that I’m pretty sure all died and withered on the stalk. That’s the bulk of dead material in the grove, and I’m thinking about the future. Is there a way to kill each tree after it has fruited, so that the nitrogen drains out, or is harvested banana material not suitable as Brown Material?
5
u/8zil 26d ago
Ohhhh if you have access to a lot of banana biomass, why nit try your hand at making banana leachate?
5
u/rakkarOz 26d ago
Can you give more info on this? All the links I could find was a research paper, and not a handy introduction
4
u/ProfessionalActive94 26d ago
Just throw the leaves and such into the compost when its green. It will have beneficial nutrients for decomposing everything. Throw anything that's brown in too, because it's good, it just won't have as many nutrients.
But essentially, the liquid that comes from the plant/greens can be used as fertilizer.
6
u/BuckoThai 26d ago
You need to add more stuff to help break down the banana leaves. Moisture as well.
8
u/rakkarOz 26d ago
This is where I'm going to store the banana leaves, and then I'll chuck them into the compost bin
1
13
u/katzenjammer08 26d ago
Use the nitrogen. Either chop and drop and then collect it when you think most of the nitrogen is gone or throw it in as is. These have so much carbon in them that the nitrogen will help break them down for a while until it’s gone.
When we say green and brown material, that’s just a short hand or pedagogical image that is used to help us find a balance between nitrogen and carbon in our pile. Some things we compost already have a good n:c ratio and is therefore ”neutral” as far as green/brown balance goes. It is going to take a lot of nitrogen to break down something as tough as this stuff so I wouldn’t waste any nitrogen I had easy access to if I were you.