Pineapples!

We all love pineapples.

Despite that they are given no thought besides taking that green crown they wear and maybe attempting to grow it... then we quickly forget about it & relegate it to some corner to grow by itself in limbo of never fruiting.

This is acceptable because, to most, pineapples haven't suffered as much in the taste department as other commercial mono cropped produce.

OR HAVE THEY!?

Yes, they have. Its just most people have never been exposed to the better alternatives. Big, sweet, edible core.... I love them, but that really is all store pineapples are. Hana, Josephine, Hilo white, heck even white jade are Mind blowingly delicious pineapple varieties that you can only experience the true bliss of if you hunt down those plants & get GROWING!

In the past couple of years there has been a huge influx of tissue culture plants hitting the market. Not just with pineapples but many fruiting plants.

This topic needs a whole post of it's own. Suffice to say, & I have the experience to say it, not the best options!! Especially with pineapples, for this article. They are often leftover garbage large growers don't want, or cheap weak plants for those who only look at the low cost. But you pay for that with slow growth & often DEATH... either way you lose, so does the small grower of rare amazing pineapples you should have bought healthy growing material from...

Sooo... you acquired some cool pineapple varieties. Now you have to wait years to get fruit!

NOT!

There are some varieties that fruit very quickly; Florida landrace being 1. But full sun & care do make them all grow & fruit faster. For the types out there that naturally take longer there are ways to help our babies give up those sweet sweet  delectable fruits we just can't wait for...

Enter the reason you are now reading this crappy looking blog.. lol Who the heck needs 2-3 years to wait for their amazing pineapple to flower when we can make them move a little faster?

Its important to note that these methods do work. Its not a crazy idea that's got no merit. Larger growers have this down to an exact science. The issue comes when you're trying to find the info & ingredients to do it yourself! I hunted long, way past the first page on google search, to find very little more than the fact that pineapples like to fruit if they get gassed with some noxious fumes...

I even tried to get hold of a pineapple grower in Hawaii. My only bit of info gained was that, "we spray our pineapples, but its nontoxic to people". So that leaves us to figure this out on our own!

In my video I use calcium carbide. Its fairly easy to get hold of, and more important, is the thing most readily mentioned online to force your pine fruit to fruit. It can take a while to get it delivered, because it must be ground shipped. But no other issues.

I also found some info for use of Naphthalene acetic acid (NAA), indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) and indole-3- acetic acid (IAA). All of those are synthetic substances used to give plants a kick in the... pants... roots & promote growth. There are quite a few things I found that may, or do actually work.

Ethylene, gasoline, propane, isopropyl alcohol, rotting bananas(whole or just the peel), spoiled milk, fresh manure around the plant.... old urine, an egg placed in the center.

Basically pineapples are into some weird shit! And if turns them on enough, they get fruity.

But again, no info for actual use or amounts, timing, or if they work well or at all. So that just leaves us to figure it, my fellow plant freaks.

I just chose the one thing, calcium carbide, to try out first. It seemed the easiest of the coolest ones to try.

I will keep you guys up to date on this little experiment. If there are any good results then we can move on to more precise amounts, timing, ingredients.

Check back, follow me & GROW FOOD!