[Crops 101] How To Cultivate Bananas

Welcome to your next Farming Simulator Academy lesson in our "Crops 101" series! This time, we're taking a closer look at bananas. How do you set up a banana plantation? How do you harvest the fruit, keep the plants healthy, and what can you do with the harvested bananas? Let's find out!

What Is Special About Bananas?

• Instead of sowing and harvesting them like a regular field crop, you create a banana plantation with rows, transport rails, and washing stations.
• You can harvest bananas manually with a machete or let hired workers take care of the job.
• Diseased banana plants have to be treated with fungicide using a specialized sprayer.
• After harvesting, the plants are cut back instead of being removed and will regrow for another harvest.
• On Catuaí, bananas can be planted and harvested throughout the entire year.
• Bananas can also be grown in other regions.

What You Need For Bananas

• Washing station: Cleans the harvested bananas before they are packed.
• Orchard tractor: Use a suitable narrow tractor to operate the tools between the rows.
• Bigger tractor: To handle pallets.
• Fertilizer spreader: Recommended to increase your yield.
• Fungicide sprayer: Applies fungicide to diseased banana plants.
• Machete: Used to cut the banana bunches when they are harvestready.
• Pallet lifter: To load pallets onto your transport vehicle.
• Transport vehicle: Used to move multiple pallets at once to your selling point.

Let's Get To Work!

Step 1: Plan your banana plantation

Start by deciding how large your plantation should be. You can place the banana rows individually if you want full control over their position, or define the boundary of a larger area and let the game generate the plantation layout for you.

When generating the layout automatically, the system calculates the direction of the rows, the required number of rails, the total area, and the cost. This makes setting up larger plantations much easier while still allowing you to decide their overall size and shape.

The last step is to place the washing stations and their connections to the rails. Make sure every rail is connected, so all of your harvested banana bunches can be transported!

Step 2: Fertilize your bananas

Fertilizing improves the yield of your bananas. Buy fertilizer from the pallets section of the shop, attach the spreader to your tractor, and fill it. Then turn on the machine, and carefully cover each row.

Tip! Use the GPS for easier machine handling between the narrow rows.

Step 3: Keep your banana plants healthy

Your plantation needs some maintenance while the bananas are growing. Banana cultivation requires spraying diseased plants with fungicide before they reach their final growth state. You can identify sick plants easily when you see a brown discoloration on the fruits.

Tip! Don't want to deal with fungal diseases? You can turn them off in the game settings.

Step 4: Harvest the bananas

Once your bananas are ready, you can harvest them manually. Take your machete and cut the banana bunches from the plants. Instead of loading the harvested fruit directly onto a trailer, hang the bunches onto the rails running through the plantation.

Don't want to perform the harvest manually? You can also hire workers to automate the harvesting process while you concentrate on other jobs around the farm.

Step 5: Wash and pack the bananas

After attaching the harvested bananas, they are moved along the railing system and toward the washing station. There, the bananas are washed and prepared for transport. Once they have been cleaned and packed, they're ready to be sold or used as an ingredient for further processing.

Step 6: Sell or process your bananas

With your freshly packed bananas ready, you can decide what happens next. Sell your harvest directly or deliver it to suitable production facilities to turn it into more valuable products.

Step 7: Cut back the plants

Harvesting doesn't mean you have to start your plantation from scratch. After the bananas have been harvested, the plants are cut back rather than removed completely. They will regrow, allowing you to continue using the same plantation setup for the next harvesting cycle.

Processing Bananas: Products

Bananas can be processed into several products instead of being sold directly. Depending on what you want to produce, harvested bananas can be delivered to facilities such as the drying station, dairy, canning factory, or bakery. Among the available products are banana milk, chips, jam, cake, snacks, and fried banana.

Well Done!

Congratulations! You now know the basics of growing and harvesting bananas in Farming Simulator. When you're ready, continue with the next Farming Simulator Academy lesson!