I'm a tropical plant newbie, I'm just wondering what the heck are these strange alpha number numberings on some types of banana? What are they test tube babies? Thanks

It may be a reference to the hybridizer, i.e., State or Federal agricultural experiment station, as in IFAS (Florida).

Brand new variety developed at the FHIA (Fundación Hondureña de Investigacion Agrícola) Research Station in Honduras. Medium size plant with broad leaves and outstanding fruit production. Cold tolerant and disease resistant. May be the next grocery store variety. Developed to be commercial export banana. Very strong plant with stout base. Excellent taste. Will never disappoint. A recent product of the banana breeding program in Honduras, this cultivar has commercial potential. It has a high wind resistance, some cold tolerance, and excellent disease resistance with s strong pseudostem and base. It is an outstanding producer of delicious tasting bananas that are reminiscent of one of its parents, Musa Dwarf Prata. A rapid growing, mostly green plant producing a wonderful tasting, slightly sub-acid, refreshing fruit that gets 6-8 inches long or better. It is a very disease resistant plant. It is also very wind and cool tolerant that is easy to grow. The first new banana variety from a breeding programme to be adopted for commercial production. It has been released in Australia as "Goldfinger" where it is showing good potential for production in sub-tropical areas. FHIA has several bananas they have developed , and they just number them the name Goldfinger came from down under .

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