ABSTRACT
Plantain is a tropical rhizomatous perennial plant closely related to bananas (Musa spp.). The starchy fruits are known as “cooking bananas” and are an important staple food in Africa, Central and South America, Oceania, South-East Asia, and the Caribbean Basin [6]. In Puerto Rico, plantain is an important cash crop with an annual farm value of $30.4 million [2]. The main area of production is in the humid mountain region where periodic droughts can reduce yields and affect fruit quality. The demand for a year-round supply of high quality fruits, high farm prices, and the availability of arable land with an irrigation infrastructure have contributed to the shifting of plantain production from the highland to the fertile but semiarid lowlands previously used for sugar-cane production. In a normal year, evaporation in this agricultural zone may be three times greater than rainfall.
