Could someone please guide me on how to grow this plant? I've included a picture of how it looks now. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
Margo
Attention Theobroma cacao growers! Need help!
Hi Margo, that root that is growing out of your cacao bean needs to get placed down into your growing medium.
The plant should be growing in a peat based medium. Place the bean an inch deep in the medium sideways with the root pointing downwards. The growing shoot will come out of the other side, with the first leaves.
The plant likes to be warm and moist, but well drained.
Feel free to ask more questions!
Aloha, Dave
Thank you. I'm so unfamiliar with growing this plant.
Bright subdued light(they are understory plants in the wild), hot 80F + and humidity around 60-75% They are truly tropical plants.Rich soil will get then going.Should bloom in about 5 years.Maybe less with good conditions.Watch for spider mites inside in winter.
Kyle :-)
This is what the plant looks like now. It seems to be very slow-growing. Is this looking like it should? I've never seen anything like it. Thank you.
Margo
Hi Margo, your Cacao plant looks fine! Those are the two cotyledons popping up. The first true leaves will be coming out of the center of them shortly.
Aloha, Dave
I planted all the seeds out of one pod I received and now I have quite a few Cacao plants LOL.....guess I'll be giving them as Christmas presents to the neighbors.
This is them at a few weeks old.....love the color in the leaves.
Good looking seedlings Astcgirl! Cacao plants don't like being root bound; they should be placed in gallon pots soon.
It is good to get some large pots ready, so that when the plants fill out the gallon pots, they can be placed in a more permanent situation, so they can get large.
Metrosideros I potted them up in gallons today, I have 2 already planted in my backyard, the flat I have showing is only half the ones I planted, I have another full flat plus another 4-5 pots full of seeds going....those pods surely do hold a lot of seeds don't they.
Excellant! I hope the Cacao does okay outside in your area. What kind of low temperature can you expect?
If I didn't already have Cacao trees, that's what I would want for Christmas!
Metrosideros the two I have in the ground are more experimental (since I have so many LOL) they are in a very protected spot so we'll see. We did have an unsually cold winter this year but usually we only get 2-3 nights of freeze warnings during the winter. Last year I only covered my plants twice where as this year it was 6-7 times. Most of my plants are actually in pots, so I will keep my backups in pots and bring my babies in when the weather gets cooler. Considering they dont like direct sun too much, my lanai is perfect for them.
Those cacao beans look delicious!
Hey , cool ...they look great!!
Where could someone find /purchase seeds for this plant??
I would love to try my hand at growing them , too
Thanks, Sharon