Today's Photo

I've shown you the oil drum fields of Israel

and I may have also posted about the lightbulb greenhouses in the Jordan Valley.

Today I bring you the bag plantations of the Jordan Valley. Shown here are both the plastic and paper bag varieties.


Ok, you caught me. Those aren't bag plantations, it's one of the many banana plantations along the Jordan Valley. And since bananas are actually herbs, those really aren't trees in the 'tree' sense of the word. (Further down were fields of trees dried and dead. Come next year, new ones will have grown in their place)

So why are the bunches of bananas wrapped in bags? Well, bananas produce ethylene gas to ripen. By wrapping the bunches in bags, it contains the gas and the bananas ripen quicker.