white pineapples

[Kahunascott]

Someone told me that there is a place in HPP where you can buy white pineapple starts. Does anyone know who and where this person is or contact information?

[lavalava]

every white pineapple you buy is a start! just plant the top!

[allensylves]

I bought several from a lady somewhere around 3rd and Paradise (?), but I do not have contact info. Occasionally there are ads on Craig's.

Allen
Finally in HPP

[Kahunascott]

Thanks Allen that's what I heard.


If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it cost when it’s free...now here come the taxes.....

[Kahunascott]

quote:

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Originally posted by lavalava

every white pineapple you buy is a start! just plant the top!

---

.

No kidding?

But, I want to plant say 12 at once, kind of hard to find 12 white pineapple tops at one time.


If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it cost when it’s free...now here come the taxes.....

[pander75]

Watch the Farm & Garden section of craigslist. This time of year there are usually people advertising white pineapple starts for $4-5 each.

[janet]

Has anyone else had the (minor) problem that all pineapples grown from planting tops never exceed about 5 inches in length and about two-to-three inches in diameter? And the ones from those tops are even smaller?

hppwatchdog, please let us know (albeit way down the line) if the ones grown from starts attain full size.

[terracore]

The suckers and slips grow larger fruits and fruit earlier than when you plant the tops. You'll have to do some looking online because I can't remember the details but between the crown of the pineapple and the suckers and slips, they can be cut in a fashion that gets you like 30 starters from 1 plant.

If your fruit is small it is probably from not enough fertilizer. Pineapples don't get their nutrients from their roots you must apply foliar fertilizer. Make sure you don't use a concentrate or you can burn the plant. Also pineapples don't like much water. In east Hawaii make sure the soil drains very well.

Commercial growers grow their plants ridiculous large very quickly by spraying them with their proprietary fertilizer mix, then they force the plants to fruit by using ethylene. It shaves about a year off the harvest time.

The sweetness of a pineapple is caused by genetics, environment, and the season it is harvested in. They do not ripen off the plant. (They will ferment, however, and that will change their flavor) A white pineapple harvested in the wrong season or picked too soon might not be sweet at all. The original yellow pineapples grown on the islands were genetically selected for their high acidity level because it made them easier to can, and when packaged with the sweet syrup were quite delicious. White pineapples aren't necessarily sweeter than yellow ones, there are plenty of yellow varieties that are even sweeter once you get away from the acidic canning varieties that are common around here.

[PunaMauka2]

i worked a year picking pineapple for Dole on Oahu back in the day (late 80's, between graduating high school and enrolling at UH ...total bust azz work @ $3.65/hr!).

we weren't exactly trained and educated in the particulars of pineapple agriculture; as a lowly picker, far from it. but it was common knowledge and quite evident that the fruit from first year crops was the largest, medium size fruit resulted from second year crops and actually got quite small by the third year harvest (almost softball size). incidentally, the fruit also became sweeter as the age of the crops progressed. often very sweet indeed as picked fresh off the plant from the 3rd year crops. but, yes, usually on the acidic end.

after the third year, Dole had the old plants ripped out and workers would replant with crowns previously saved from fruit picked for the cannery. when picking fruit for the cannery, the crowns were removed by an assortment of tricks involving a flick of the wrist (devising new fancy tricks and friendly competition with those in neighboring lanes became a form of entertainment to help pass the time ...in between episodes of exhaustion and heat stroke). the crowns were often thrown into the boom along with the fruit. other times the luna told the gang to simply discarded the crowns back into the field behind us.

i never did planting work. 90% or more of the time i picked for the cannery. every now and then i picked fresh fruit or had the occasional day of hoe hana.

how small garden crops of white pineapple may differ from the varieties of pineapple used by big ag industry and their preferred methods, i dunno. but for what it's worth, there it is.

[rainyjim]

Terracore, white pineapples or sugarloaf as they are sometimes called actually do have a higher brix content and lower acidity than the MD-2 pineapples of which orginate the maui gold and dole pineapples or yellow that you will find in Hawaii.

Also, pineapples do take in nutrients and water through their leaves however they do still take in both through their roots.

Other than that terracore is dead on about pineapples!