Hi my name is Byron Martin, here at Logee's Greenhouses,
and today we're going to be talking about one of my favorite fruiting plants
of the tropics,
and this is the cocoa, 'Theobroma cacao.'
The chocolate tree
is from South America, and has been used by the native indigenous peoples
for centuries. The common name of Theobroma cacao is
"food of the god". And,
it has a lot of health properties to it, as been found out in
recent research. Here, we have a cocoa tree
that has been growing in this pot for
probably five or six years, and
this is the fruit, which the cocoa comes from.
It's an interesting plant, in that the flowers and fruit form along the old, woody
stems, as you can see here, rather than
many plants, which would flower out on the ends of the stems. They look kinda like
footballs; they have several shapes to them. This one is a long pointed with
yellow skin to it. These fruit here are ripe.
They are ready to pick, and you can see along the stems, here, there's
old flower spikes, so, during it's flowering season, which will be coming up in the
summertime, this whole trunk will be covered with small flowers.
As far as pruning goes, we pretty much just chop the top out of it,
as this thing rises up against the greenhouse, we'll cut the top out periodically,
whenever it's needed.
Generally there's lower branches that form as the plant comes up; so that
keeps their photosynthesis going.
And the top can simply be pruned back periodically, to maintain its height.
It doesn't-- as long as you don't take off too many
branches, or too many leaves at a time, it doesn't seem to set the plant back any.
As far as insects go, they are pretty much immune to it,
we do see a few aphids
on the young leaves, at times, in the flush of growth.
It, also,
is a plant that really enjoys a clay pot, rather than a plastic pot. We found that
the presence of root diseases is diminished significantly,
when we grow them, at least in the North, here, in greenhouses, in clay pots. So,
clay pots are one thing that you'd want to work with, as you're growing these.
Theobroma, or the Chocolate tree is a tropical plant,
and, generally, we consider it a plant that needs warm temperatures,
so we keep the plants at 65 or 60-65 degrees
year-round. It can take lower drops periodically, for short periods of time.
It's actually a zone 10 plant, and that means that
it needs to be protected from any short freezings that may come along
during the growing season. In growing Cocoa,
they are really an understory plant, meaning that they
grow in some shade in the jungles. And so, this gives us an opportunity,
especially in the North, here, we have diminished light, to grow the plant
in a greenhouse or sunroom situation, where there is less than direct sun.
One of the issues that we face with Cocoa--
and this is not only in the North, here, in containers,
but throughout areas where they grow, even in the tropics
or subtropical areas, where they are protected from cold--
is this burning on the edge of the leaves. You can see this tip
burning, here. And it is a problem
related, most likely, to nutrition. That happens
after the plant leaves get older. The new flush which comes on
throughout the spring, going into summer time, is clear of that. It
really is more of a cosmetic issue than
anything to do with the health of the plant. As far as getting them to set fruit, the
plant just have to get big enough to be able to hold that fruit.
This tree, here, iss as I said was,
about five maybe six years old; it has produced fruit on it now, for
the last three years, we've had this fruiting.
So, it's really about a matter of time, in culturing them and getting the plant
large enough-- that is, the trunk size, here-- large enough.
Thank you for watching.
This is how we grow cocoa in containers,
and if you would like more information, you can go to our website
at Logees.com