ИСТИНА

Sergei Zolkin, research scientist at the Main Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that “in a greenhouse environment bananas can show good results in this country. In this case, the territory doesn’t matter, whether it’s Krasnodar in the south, or Murmansk in the Arctic. In fact, the banana is an unpretentious plant. What they need is open space, good lighting and plenty of water. They can use various soils, from sand to peat and moist ground. They can do without fertilization and they don’t require constant care. The shortest banana trees that give fruit are just 2.5 to 3 metres high. A standard automated greenhouse will do.” Zolkin acknowledges also that there are subtropical environments in southern Russia, where it may be possible to grow bananas in the open, as they are grown in Crete. Zolkin didn’t specify exactly where. And there may be commercial profit in establishing such plantations. Zolkin is skeptical: “Growing bananas in the open air in Russia seems to be economically unprofitable — they grow well only in the tropical and the subtropical zone.