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Are mine looking all right? All six kauai sugarloaf plants are very red - I read this is either a nutrient deficiency, or intense sun. I think it's the latter, as they are on my balcony patio right next to window "railing", south-east facing. Cheese pine also looks odd.. leaves are yellow-brown, not green, and the puan is a mix of the two? Nights have been cold here in south orange county, 1 mile from ocean.
I try to give 1/2tsp per gallon water dynagro foliage pro once a month, and sometimes if I remember, fish emulsion with a tiny amount of iron between the dynagro. Too much? Too little? All are about a year old. My grocery store ones are green, look similar size.
The red color is normal, its the sun. I have other varieties that stay green and they all get the same treatment. Nothing to worry about.
Im ditching the cheese pines and only growing the puan and white sugarloafs now. The cheese has issues in our weather and the fruits tend to snap off when ripe so be sure to stake it. The sugarloaf and pauns are winners though.
I tried growing the seeds, but nothing so far. Seeds are very small in this pinapple.
You can just remove the pups and plant right away. If they are low on the plant and between leaves you can pull the leaf below the shoot way down and then carefully remove it trying not to break it or it will ruin it. Ive ruined many being impatient removing the ones between long leaves. The ones in the dirt just pull it strait out at the roots.
Ive started removing some types feom my collection. The leaves are too spiney or the fruit are too small or they cant handle the weather here etc. Pretty much all the victoria/queen ones Im ditching and probably the red spanish and chees pines too.
The current best ones are the white jade, white sugar loaf, Paun, giant md2, tropical gold, maui sweet, smooth cayanes. The josepine is ok but the plant is pretty weak and the fruit are small and the plant seems to be a scale magnet. Some types clearly attract more scale than others. The sharp queen types are such a pain to work with and the fruit is very bumpy and smaller and tend to have a lot of waste from the peel.
Success.I did my first today. Now to wait a few weeks and see what happens.
i started mine on the 15th of july this month so far they seem to be doing fine no signs of rot so
that's good so we shell see in time i will take a photo soon and post it later... i been outside potting
my next season's Natal queen suckers and slips.. not that i needed anymore. lol i already have others that will
be full grown and should flower by winter time sometime...
if you get a chance take photos of yours and keep us updated how they turn out
I have not looked for a few days and took a peek at it this evening and I see fresh growth. I will look in better light tomorrow and take a picture or two.
Thanks for sharing! Good to hear others trying this too.
I recently tried the quartering method to jumpstart my sugarloaf patch, and am in the middle of it. Since they were shipped with crowns cut down I tried the route of a light rooting in water first just to test viability. I am in Arizona so plants are indoors on a window sill for now.
July 14th: Placed crowns in water with little rooting hormone.
July 24th: Roots got 1/2 to 1 inch long, quartered the crowns, planted in off the shelf potting mix + perlite. 16 total. (Hindsight should have throw in peatmoss)
August ~7th: lost one to rot. Turned black and moldy. Realized I cannot provide water on the cut side in my environment (low airflow). I now water lightly every 3-4 days on just the not-cut side of the crown now. Also note water rooting may have compounded.
August 30th: 4 of them have visible new growth now, the other 11 still alive waiting to pop.
Comparing your timelines to mine, looks like simply cutting and planting is the way to go. I gained nothing by trying to root in water first other than assurance the crowns were still viable.
Will move to peat moss/acid based soil outdoors as they start showing growth.
Happy growing!
Also, after reviewing the image of the roots when I quartered them, I'd be tempted to even try cutting into 1/6ths or 1/8ths.
Do these suckers grow and produce faster than just planting the whole top?
Nice progress. I tried this back when you originally posted. So far I haven't seen any growth from any of the sections. I guess you keep them in the shade for a while? Anyway I rarely get any noticeable growth the first year when planting whole tops, maybe because of the short season here.
This ones a josepine from malaysia. Its still a few months away but Ive got a few of these that are this stage. The plant isnt that hardy and the fruit look small but the colors are nice. Its slightly serrated and supposed to have good brix. We'll see how it tuens out in a few months.
I did my first today. Now to wait a few weeks and see what happens.
This is a .pdf document showing experimental results of several split-crown techniques.
https://academicjournals.org/article/article1380096403_Agogbua%20and%20Osuji.pdf
I did not know you could do that.
Doesn't that render ineffective the drilling of the center of the crown that some sellers do to prevent growing the variety?
Thanks for sharing I must try this sometime.
I can send a cheespine slip next time if you want one. They seem ok in the hoophouse here over winter but you can tell the plant isn't that hardy. The queen types are for sure tough. I got one from malaysia called Sawit that looks like a queen type if you want to try and grow it.
