Category: Vanilla Cultivation

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The Amazon Vanilla Project and Sustainable Rainforest Agriculture

The Amazon Vanilla Project oper­ates in the San Martín dis­trict of north­ern Peru, pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion and sup­port for local farm­ers to grow vanil­la as a cash crop. The project is spon­sored by Sekut Vanilla Co. which pro­vides cur­ing and mar­ket­ing ser­vices to local farm­ers. Vanilla, like cacao, can be grown in a for­est set­ting with lit­tle change to the for­est itself, pro­vid­ing a fam­i­ly income while pre­serv­ing the nat­ur­al diver­si­ty of the Amazonian rain­for­est. Vanilla is grown under the for­est canopy, using small trees or trel­lis­es built from avail­able mate­ri­als in the for­est. Since vanil­la is an epi­phyte, its cul­ti­va­tion does not require fer­til­iz­ers or oth­er chem­i­cals. They are nat­u­ral­ly pest-resis­­tant grow­ing in a diver­si­fied set­ting in their home envi­ron­ment. … (read)

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Potting Up Vanilla Seedlings

A few weeks ago, when I was in the vanillery doing a gen­er­al prune, I came across sev­er­al seedling deep under a dense sec­tion of vines. I took note of the loca­tion with the inten­tion of mov­ing the seedlings to pots so they can get a bit big­ger before I plant them out in the new vanillery.

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It’s the Peak of the Vanilla Flowering Season

Lisa and I spent a good part of the morn­ing out in the vanillery pol­li­nat­ing the flow­ers. We’ve been out there every morn­ing for sev­er­al weeks already, but today was dif­fer­ent. It seemed like the entire place was ablaze with the pale blos­soms: every­where you looked, flow­ers beck­oned as if to say “come taste my sweet nec­tar” but of course, we were not there for that. Pollinating a vanil­la flower takes del­i­ca­cy, a steady hand and a famil­iar­i­ty with the anato­my of the orchid’s bloom. After a while, you can do it quick­ly, which is good, because there are sev­er­al hun­dred of them ready to go today. There’s no wait­ing for these flow­ers, they’ll be closed for busi­ness by noon…it’s like… (read)

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Harvesting & The Vanillery is Getting Ready to Flower

Out in the vanillery, we’re start­ing to see the fresh flower buds emerg­ing on the mature vines. Always an excit­ing time of the year as we antic­i­pate the begin­ning of a new cycle. These lit­tle guys will be sprout­ing flow­ers in a cou­ple of weeks!

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First Harvest of the 2021 Season!

The cycle begins anew! This week we pulled our first har­vest out of the vanillery, offi­cial­ly start­ing the 2021 har­vest sea­son.  This year is slight­ly lat­er than most , typ­i­cal­ly we see our first har­vest in the first week or two of January. The har­vest sea­son typ­i­cal­ly goes until late April, so it’s a full 4 months of going into the vanillery to har­vest 3 times a week. This year we are expect­ing a small­er har­vest than last year. There were not as many flowers…not sure why but the crowd­ing in the vanillery could be one factor.

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The New Vanillery has been Built and Planted

We’ve been work­ing on get­ting this new vanillery (locat­ed on the north­west cor­ner of our prop­er­ty) built for a cou­ple of years now. This bit of land was not in use, and sev­er­al very large “weed” trees were in the way and need­ed to be removed. No point in plant­i­ng under a tree you’re going to cut down, so we had to wait until we had the help we need­ed to get the trees down. The sto­ry of get­ting rid of those trees is long and con­vo­lut­ed, it took sev­er­al tries to get the job done…but thanks to lots of able help (maha­lo: Jonathan, Tim, Christopher, Freddy) and sheer per­se­ver­ance, we got it done. Once the trees were cleared, we need­ed… (read)

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The Amazon Vanilla Project

Peruvian vanil­la grow­er Ashley Britton has launched a project to bring vanil­la pro­duc­tion to the Peruvian Amazon to ben­e­fit the indige­nous Awajun peo­ple. Vanilla pom­pona has been wild­craft­ed in this part of the Amazon for a long time for local use, but with glob­al demand for real vanil­la grow­ing, this is a good time to estab­lish vanil­la pom­pona as an export prod­uct. The region suf­fered a set­back in its abil­i­ty to pro­vide a cash income when the cacao was reject­ed for too high a cad­mi­um con­tent. Ashley hopes that vanil­la, specif­i­cal­ly vanil­la extract, can sup­plant the lost cacao income.

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2019 Harvest Season Begins!

Went out to the vanillery and was greet­ed with the sight of ripen­ing beans! You get used to the beans grow­ing for months, then all of a sudden…they’re turn­ing. This year seems a bit ear­li­er than usu­al, but that could have been expect­ed since the 2018 flow­er­ing sea­son also start­ed ear­ly. The flow­er­ing sea­son in Hawaii starts in January and extends through June. April and May are the peak nor­mal­ly, but trips to the vanillery every morn­ing need to hap­pen for a full 6 months! Picking the Ripe Beans When the beans ripen they need to be picked right away because they devel­op quick­ly once the yel­low­ing starts. We search the vanillery for ripened beans every 3 days or so to… (read)

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