Peat moss and coir are industry standards for building growing mixes and amending soil, but a new product from Southeast Fiber Corporation promises to outperform them both. This is their story!
Recently, we met Chris Curzon of Southeast Fiber Corporation - the producer of Banana Bloom®, a water-loving (hydrophilic) and water-holding fiber from the trunk of banana trees that “super-charges” a soil mix with water-holding properties while opening up the mix for better oxygen access and micro spaces for roots to grow.
Chris tells us how Banana Bloom® came to be and how Chris and his partners set up banana plantations in Central America. Initially, they were in the banana production business but quickly saw the promise of banana tree trunk fibers for several manufacturing uses. The material is durable, possesses a hollow structure, and is sustainable as banana trees can be grown annually.
Banana Bloom® is one of Southeast Fiber Corporation’s products. It is produced after extracting the long strands of banana fiber used in woven and non-woven products. Banana Bloom® consists of short sections of banana tree trunk fiber and is a byproduct of the fiber extraction process. It’s a light, high-volume, hydrophilic product that will significantly improve growing mix characteristics when only 5 to 10% Banana Bloom® is added.
To learn about additional benefits and characteristics of Banana Bloom® or to place an order, visit:
www.bananabloom.co.
To see water retention tests and our full product review with Chris Curzon, visit:
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay from DirtFarmerJay.com
with my friend Chris Crezon from Banana Bloom,
a product that I think is gonna change
the gardening game forever.
And I'm not exaggerating.
You're gonna like what you hear, stay tuned.
Chris, one of the interesting aspects
when I met you at this recent show
was the story of Banana Bloom,
how Banana Bloom came to be,
what the discovery process was for you
and how you brought it to market.
This is cool stuff.
So let it fly.
Okay, I practiced law for about 30 years.
What?
But I told my wife like 12 years ago,
I said, I'm not gonna retire as an attorney.
She goes, what are you gonna do?
I said, I don't know, but it won't be an attorney.
Okay.
And through a series of events,
we end up clearing land and planting bananas
down in Central America and then exporting
with Chiquita and Walmart.
And then we got into food processing
and exporting to Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica.
And when COVID hit, it just about killed us
because there was no PPP there.
Well, first of all, I'm looking at how many people
can say they've done this sort of thing.
Oh, we just went and started a banana plantation.
Okay, go for it.
What happened next?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, we ended up being down there for seven years
and we've actually been operating down there
for about going on 11 years.
Okay.
So anyway, necessity being the mother of invention,
we started focusing on fiber
and never heard anything about banana fiber.
I'd heard something, but not much.
And I've assumed we're down in banana country.
There are bananas everywhere.
Right.
Someone's gotta know about the fiber.
And the surprising thing is no one knew anything about it.
And we ended up finding a extraction machine
for banana fiber up in the mountains in Nicaragua
in some small Pueblo where we buy it from the guy
for like 50 bucks, which would be, you know,
half month's salary.
Right.
So going forward, we start,
we're really focused on the fiber itself,
which is to use it in non-woven products
for insulation and filtration and plastics
and everything like that.
But we kept getting a by-product,
kind of the leftover of the extraction.
And I started looking at it and noticed
that it had certain characteristics.
So I'd take a, I took a shovel
and took about a foot off of the top of a big pile of it.
And it had been sitting there for months
down in that part of the world.
In the weather, outside.
Outside.
Okay, got it.
Outside in the weather, everything molds,
mildews, fungus, it stinks, it rots.
Everything rots.
You're saying in that environment.
Pretty much.
Okay, got it.
But this stuff, so when I take a layer off,
I'm expecting to find, you know, one day.
A Petri dish.
Right, a Petri dish.
You're gay?
Exactly.
You're gay?
That it's gonna stink.
It's gonna be bad.
And what do I find?
I find clear water sitting inside.
No odor whatsoever.
No mold, no mildew, no fungus.
Did you drink it?
I didn't drink it, though.
Okay, but obviously you're onto something.
This is not what you expected.
Right, not what we expected.
And from there, we've developed,
we've been working with scientists.
We have a laboratory.
Our headquarters is in Charlotte, North Carolina.
We've had a laboratory in Mumbai, India,
and then we've been working with a major university on.
And what's your company name in North Carolina?
It's Southeastern Fiber Corporation.
Right.
So it's a biotechnology company.
Right on.
Right, right.
But you found a practical application
for part of the product that is in the agriculture
or horticultural industry that could be a game changer.
That's what we think.
Yeah.
And I think you've got some compelling things going on.
Chris, from what I've seen, this is awesome material.
We're looking forward to making use of it
here right in the greenhouse operations here
as we start our plants and container plants.
And so we'll actually become people that use it.
And I suspect we'll come back after the next season
and give everybody our firsthand experience of it.
But all indicators are we're gonna have a great experience.
So this is really cool stuff.
Now, if somebody right now wants to jump in
in anticipation of the next growing season
or planting season and they wanna get this material
or they want more information, where do they go to do that?
Okay, if someone would like to order the product,
they can go to bananabloom.co, C-O.
On the website, there's links
which will lead you to an order page.
So check that out, take a look at it.
Chris, it's gonna be exciting to see
what happens with this product,
the inroads you make in the horticultural,
the gardening, the agricultural communities
as the word gets out.
And hopefully this will help do that.
It's our pleasure to get the word out with you today.
Thanks for being with us today.
Yeah, thank you very much for introducing it.
Thank you. Right on, Chris.
Hey, until the next time,
this is Dirt Farmer Jay from dirtfarmerjay.com.
Thanks for being with us today.
