Planting Lakatan bananas in Cagayan de Oro City is something that I never dreamed I would be doing. Well, not really in Cagayan de Oro City itself but close enough, in Maasin, Baungon which belongs to Bukidnon province. Maasin is close enough to Cagayan de Oro City that it might as well be a part of this golden city itself. The way to Maasin is through the highway past the Lumbia Airport on the way to Talakag where you take a left turn going towards Cabula Bridge. Crossing the bridge brings you to Bukidnon territory.

Maasin is blessed with tall mountains which allows a lot of water to flow towards the lowlands and on to the Cagayan River itself. My brother has a piece of land there which where I am planting the Lakatan seedlings. From where I live it takes me thirty minutes to get to the farm which is pretty close to the city and I go there everyday. I had no idea how bananas where cultivated but there is no dearth of experts when it comes to bananas in Cagayan de Oro City. Del Monte grows bananas and so does Dole which has extensive tracts of land dedicated to bananas.

One can either get seedlings from tissue culture laboratories or you can get suckers from existing plants. While suckers are cheaper, tissue culture seedlings might be more robust and healthy, assuming of course that the laboratory takes its source for explants from healthy, virus-free plants.