Number 2 - 2004 - Acta Horticulturae

Greenhouse Cultivation of Bananas
Víctor Galán Saúco, Ahmed Ait-Oubahou and Hanaf Abdelhaq
The idea of cultivating tropical fruits in
greenhouses is certainly not new. The first
European pineapples were produced during
the reign of Louis 14th of France (Py, 1967)
and its popularity as a greenhouse crop in
Europe only waned towards the end of the
19th century when competitive fruits from the
tropics became more readily available to consumers.
Its cultivation under glass does however
persist to this day on the Portuguese island
of San Miguel, in the Azores Archipelago.
Morocco, with 4460 ha, and Spain, with 3000
ha in the Canary Islands, are the largest producers
of banana under greenhouse worldwide.
In Morocco greenhouse banana area
reached its peak of 4650 ha in 1994 but
decreased since due to import restrictions
(Hanafi and Papasolomontos, 1999). The area
of banana under greenhouse in Morocco is
likely to decrease in the coming years because
of competition from imported banana from
South America.
The area of banana cultivation under cover in
the Canary Islands have been in continuous
increase but the future trend will depend on
the changes to be implemented in the
European banana market after the tariff-only
system will be imposed, not later than 2006 or
even perhaps in 2004.
Cultivation of banana under greenhouse is
gaining importance in Israel, where some
experimental plots were planted at the begin-
Banana greenhouse range in the Canary Islands.
ning of the 1990s and now about 100 ha is
cultivated and there is a clear trend to increase
the surface under protected cultivation (Y.
Israeli, pers. commun., 2003). Small commercial
plantings of banana under plastic are
found in Crete (72 ha) (S. Lionakis, pers. commun.,
2000), Cyprus (260 ha) (Papandreou,
1992), Lebanon (65 ha), (Marouni, pers. commun.)
and Algarve region of Portugal (12 ha)
(Louro, 1998). Smaller areas of banana under
greenhouse are grown in Turkey, Korea,
Tunisia, and Argentina (Galán Saúco, 2002). A
few hectares of banana were planted under
greenhouse during the 1990s in South Africa
(Eckstein et al., 1998). In Iran, about 50 ha of
banana are cultivated under greenhouse in the
Northern part of the country adjacent to the
Caspian sea (Ait-Oubahou, 2002). Attempts
have also been made in Sicily and Sardinia with
good production results, but doubtful economics
(Pala, 1993), discouraging further
plantings.
ADVANTAGES AND
DISADVANTAGES OF
BANANA GREENHOUSE
CULTIVATION
The general advantages of greenhouse cultivation
in the subtropics have been studied in
depth in the Canary Islands (Galán Saúco et
al., 1998) and include: (1) increase in the
number of hours with a temperature above
20°C, considered the threshold below which
growth and development cannot be improved
by any cultural technique (Green and Kuhne,
1970); (2) protection against wind and other
weather conditions (sunburn, hail); (3) reduction
in water consumption, as evapotranspiration
is reduced by up to 25%, this being the
main reasons for the Israeli plantings; (4)
increase in the leaf surface leading to higher
photosynthetic capacity; (5) reducing the life
cycle of the plant to less than 13 months from
planting to harvest; and (6) to greater and
heavier bunches in subtropical climate. Other
additional advantages of greenhouse cultivation
in subtropical areas include good size of
banana fruit and theoretically the prevention
of the dispersal of Sigatoka as the two inoculum
types (conidia and ascospores) are spread
mostly by wind (Carlier et al., 2000).
All of these points are of capital importance in
reducing costs and increasing yields, to the
extent that in some areas of the Canary Islands
bunch weights have increased up to 61.7%
(Galán Saúco et al., 1998), which translates
into average yields of over 80 tonnes/ha
(exceptionally 100 tonnes/ha per year) in comparison
to averages of 60 tonnes/ha a year for
well-managed open air plantations. Similar
reports were reported under greenhouse cultivation
in Morocco (Janick and Ait Oubahou,
1989). The reasons for this increase in yield lies
in the fact that since vegetative growth precedes
flowering and fruiting, there is no competition
between both processes, and conditions
that favor growth, such as those obtained
in well managed greenhouses in the subtropics,
also favor flowering and fruiting.
The greenhouses cost around 8 euros/m 2 in
the Canaries as compared to 1.5 to 3 euros/m 2
in Morocco. In the Canaries where tourism is
high, the structures have been thought to have
a negative esthetic impact.
THE BANANA
GREENHOUSES
The first type of greenhouse structure used for
banana in Morocco was a 5-to-6-m-high
structure covering 1 to 1.25 ha (Janick and Ait-
Oubahou, 1989). Today, a structure developed
in the Canaries made totally of wood or galvanized
poles is frequently used. The size has
remained relatively constant and is dictated by
the dimensions of the plastic sheets (3 to 6 m
wide by 120 to 140 m long). A single sheet of
film is stretched over a wooden (usually eucalyptus)
or metal frame, resulting in the basic
CHRONICA HORTICULTURAE •VOL 44 • NUMBER 2 • 2004 • 35