Im sharing this info for people who are interested in growing pineapples. Ill include some info on how to plant and the different types Im growing.
Pineapples are quite easy to propogate and grow. They do well in containers and don't require much upkeep or care. The only real issue is they are fairly tropical and do not like cold weather below 50F. They will survive in the 30s but they stop growing and tend to go into decline, especially if they are wet and cold. So pull your plants under a shade or inside the garage or greenhouse during those winter rain storms if its cold where you live.
To propogate them you can use fresh slips or offsets and plant into small pots. If you have slips that have no roots, peel back some of the lower leaves to expose the root nodes and plant into 4 or 6 inch pots to get them started. Using a small pot allows the dirt to dry out while the plant gets established vs always staying soggy in a larger pot or in ground. If you are lucky enough to live somewhere like costa rica or hawaii where conditions are right, pups can be planted straight into the ground obviously. Im assuming most people reading this are zone pushing a bit and growing in semi tropical climate or greenhouses. Pineapple plants do amazingly well in a greenhouse environment. If you live in zone 8-10 , a greenhouse will be best during winter.
Peel back your leaves and expose the roots
Plant into 4 or 6 in pots to root them for 2-6 months
This MD2 plant has been in the 6in pot for several months and is ready to up pot to a 5gal pot to fruit in.
Once you are seeing roots on the bottom of the pot, it can be up potted. This one could have been done a month ago.
A 5gallon pot is sufficient for most varieties to produce a large fruit comparable or larger than comercial store bought pineapples. This is a 5gal MD2
The soil Im using is EB stone cactus mix. You want well draining mix with pumice or perlite addative in it for breathability and drainability. This mix has no fertilizer so I will add a slow release fertilizer or some organic slow going fertilizer to the mix when potting. A little animal manure would work also. Use a well balanced fertilizer to start with. Organic 5-5-5 or similar is good.
Then you can water occasionally maybe once a month with fish emulsion or other water soluable fertilizer to feed them. I use a jacks 15-5-15 with micro package on pineapple and banana. Or sometimes a grow power 8 6 8. They also like high iron and mineral content so a micro nutruient with iron is good. Pineapples are not salt sensitive and they will take all kinds of fertilizers no problem, just don't go too crazy, an occasional feeding between multiple waterings is all you need. Don't over water your plants, once they have some roots let them dry out a bit between watering, they dont like suoer wet feet. And when fertilizing with dry fertilizer scratch in around the plant into the dirt. Or if using water soluable, pour straight into the center of the plants and drench the plant and soil.
