If you plant at a spacing of 3m x 3m within rows, you can have 450 plants on an acre of land. Standard holes should be 60cm deep and 60m wide.
Bananas take 9-12 months to start fruiting. However, by this time, there should be at least two new stems on the first plants.
It is important that you do not allow each plant to have more than three other stems around it in order to avoid congestion. Congested plants produce small bunches. Congested shambas produce weights of lower than 40kg, while sparsely-spaced shambas produce weights of 60kg and above.
In the first year, you will be able to harvest at least 450 bunches; however, as the new stems also start producing, harvests will go up. You will spend at least sh900,000 -sh1.5m on good suckers. With three stems, on a clump you will harvest at least 1,350 bunches per year. If you sell each at sh10,000, you can earn a conservative sh13.5m per year.
The major costs include weeding twice a year at a cost of sh300,000, mulching once a year using organic fertilisers, for example, dung or chicken droppings at sh400,000.
