Fruit numbers on bunches of bananas can be estimated rapidly

Abstract

An unbiased method of estimating the number of fruit (fingers) on bunches of bananas is described. Data needed are the number of fruit on the third hand from the proximal (top) end of the bunch and on the second hand from the distal (bottom) end of the bunch and the number of hands on the bunch.
The method enables finger counts to be obtained much more rapidly than by counting all the fingers on the bunch, although about 26% more bunches are needed for the same precision. it works well for the cultivar ‘Williams’ (AAA, Giant Cavendish sub-group), but for ‘Sucrier’, ‘Pacific Plantain’ and ‘Ducasse’ it needs further testing.
When the number of fingers on 10 bunches of ‘Williams’ were estimated by this method, the probability that the finger number differed less than 3.5% from the observed count was 0.95. The method may be useful for some other banana varieties. It can be used to estimate the most representative hand for mean finger weight, which was found to be halfway down the bunch.