The Tropical Fruit Forum

I think you’re getting pretty good advice.  I’d probably leave 12-15 leaves on that layer.  Damp and warm.
Peter

Cacao as a crop has been very challenging.  Very serious disease problems plague it.  What’s interesting is that while the price has been terrible for cacao for years it has about quadrupled in the last 6 months or so.  If that price jump holds up it will certainly change the dynamic.  There’s lots of people who love the idea of cultivating cacao but they’ve mostly been punished by the bad price for their efforts.  Now, price relief is here so we’ll see how that plays out.
Peter

Like Brad said - you need to force the grafts or they won’t grow. Remove all competition. The tree is trying to bypass the grafts

Here’s the latest update on my male tree. The male tree started showing obviously differentiated bloom buds around November of last year per my reply # 674 on page 27 of this thread. Male buds started opening on 12/29/2023 per my reply # 686 on page 28 of this thread. Today, there are only a few male blooms remaining and all female buds are transitioning to vegetative growth. There are probably only about 10-20 small male blooms left on the male tree and they will likely release all their pollen within 1 week. This means that for this specific male I have, the bloom period at my location is approximately 4 months long with February and March as the main bloom/pollinating months.

Here’s a picture of a few of the remaining scraggly male blooms





If everyone can track their location, variety and bloom times, we can build a database that can help us decide which varieties to pair up with each other. The data will also be important for commercial farmers that may want to extend the fruiting season by planting early and late season varieties and also getting earlier or later crops based on location/climate.

Simon

Here where there’s a dry season people have started irrigating cacao. Personally in that environment I’d probably plant something else that was less work. Wind is also very destructive for cacao I’m sure your aware. In Hawaii they talk a lot about it being a challenge in some areas too.