All about the intricacies of planting pineapple at home
Pineapples have been cultivated in greenhouses for a very long time. But it turns out that you can grow them yourself at home if you know how to plant a pineapple from its top. An unpretentious plant will grow even in northern regions with proper care. And decorating a festive table with a fruit grown by yourself is a real pleasure for everyone.
How to choose the right pineapple?
In order to get a new one from the cut off top of a pineapple at home, you must choose the right product. That's right - it means buying a ripe, but not overripe fruit.
There are rules to help you make the right choice.
- Look for fresh pineapple in the store (a product that has been on the counter for a long time may not give roots or a weak plant will develop from it).
- The crest should not be slightly frozen.
- On examination, the top should be firm, not dry, with elastic bright green large leaves. The presence of dark spots, damage, cuts or dry ends on them is unacceptable.
- The pineapple itself should not be overripe and unripe. Ideally, it should have a golden-green rind, and the fruit itself should be firm.
The optimal time to buy the "right" product for the purpose of further growing at home is the period from late summer to mid-autumn.
How to prepare for planting
Before planting a purchased pineapple, you should separate the tuft. This can be done using one of the options.
- Twisting: grasp the leaves with one hand, and with the other, holding the fruit, slowly twist the top out of it.
- Cutting: carefully cut off the top of the fruit with a knife, leaving a distance of 4-5 cm to the leaves, while the lower leaves are removed, and the flesh is trimmed to a root 1.5-2 cm long.
The resulting "sprout" for disinfection is lowered into a weak solution of furacilin or potassium permanganate.
Advice
Instead of solutions, you can use wood ash, crushed activated carbon. Sprinkle the root with one of them or mix them together.
Drying of the top is considered an important point. It is wrapped with a cord, rope or wire and then hung up for 10-14 days. In this case, its leaves should hang down.
Important!
Such a procedure will ensure the outflow of all substances important for the plant into the root formation zone and the cut will heal.
Landing
Growing a plant at home takes place in an ordinary flower pot with a volume of up to 0.5 liters with drainage for draining the water. Pebbles are laid out in a small layer on its bottom, and the container is filled with soil (mix garden soil, humus, peat, sand in equal amounts). You can buy ready-made soil (soil for growing plants from the Bromylium family is suitable).
Advice
Before planting (2-3 days), the prepared soil must be shed with a hot solution of potassium permanganate. This will help protect the crop from bacteria or parasites.
In the soil in the center of the pot, a small depression is made up to 3-5 cm deep, up to 5-7 cm wide (depending on the size of the planted root). To save the plant from rotting, crushed activated carbon can be poured into the depression. The root can rot from waterlogging of the soil or from insufficient drying.
Planting a plant is carried out according to the following rules.
- The root is located vertically in the groove, covered with earth and slightly compacted.
- The top is fixed to avoid tilting: sticks (plastic or wooden) are installed along the edges of the container. Threads connect each stick to the top.
- The soil is slightly moistened (it must not be poured).
- The plant is covered with a transparent container or plastic bag.
- The pot is placed at home in a warm and well-lit place without drafts.
After 1-1.5 months, the tip will give roots. This can be determined by the young leaves that appear. The package (container) can be removed only after they appear.
Growing and care rules
Pineapple is a non-capricious and unpretentious plant to grow. It doesn't require any special care. But there are several conditions that are important to consider.
- Temperature
The plant loves light and warmth. Growing pineapple from its top should take place at a temperature of 23-25 ° C. During the winter months, you can maintain the required temperature with a heater or lamp.
If the pot with the plant is on the windowsill, it must be protected from drafts and accidental frostbite.
- Watering
Being a tropical plant, pineapple easily tolerates heat and lack of moisture. The main mistake that flower growers make is frequent and abundant watering. At home, it should be watered abundantly only twice a week, and in winter this should be done even less often.
Important!
An excess of water will lead to root rot and death of the plant. Watering should be done only with warm water and when the soil in the pot is really dry!
Watering should not only be done on the soil under the crop. Water must also be poured into the leaves so that they can accumulate it in themselves.
- Top dressing
When growing pineapple at home, you do not need to often feed it with fertilizers. It is enough to apply any organic or complex fertilizer intended for indoor flowers 2 times a year.
Important!
Do not use alkaline top dressing (lime, ash). Even a small amount of them will lead the plant to death.
In order to prepare the culture for fruiting and enhance vegetative growth, in the third year, every 14 days it should be fed with any organic fertilizer. For this purpose, at home, you can use mullein infusion, which contains all the important trace elements. The infusion is prepared just a bucket of water (10 l) is filled with manure by a third, filled with water and infused for 5-8 days with periodic stirring. When the fermentation of manure is complete, the infusion is diluted with water in a 1: 8 ratio.
To stimulate fruiting and improve the quality of the future fruit, it is recommended to carry out another top dressing. Proved well as a carbide stimulant. A small piece of it (12-15 g) is lowered into a container (1 liter) with water - bubbling and release of acetylene will be observed. After the reaction has subsided, the solution (30 ml) is poured into a leaf funnel, where the growth point is located. The procedure must be repeated again every other day. From the point is simple, a peduncle will appear in 1.5 months.
Advice
Stimulation is recommended during the warm season and when the leaves grow up to 60 cm long and up to 7-10 cm wide at the base.
- Lighting
Growing at home requires the plant to be kept in a sufficiently lit room. On cloudy days or in the autumn-winter season, it is necessary to turn on the lamp installed 20-25 cm from it for 7-10 hours.
An indicator that the culture has enough light are large, wide leaves and a light crimson color of the edges of young leaves.
- Transfer
The growing plant should be transplanted into a new, more voluminous pot in a timely manner. Usually, the transplant is carried out once a year in the spring. For culture, you need to select a low, but fairly wide capacity. Its similar shape corresponds to the peculiarity of pineapple roots - they are in the upper layer of the soil and do not deepen. A wide-diameter dish contributes to good soil aeration - this is very important for the growth of a green pet.
Pineapple is an exotic crop that can be easily grown. But every grower should be patient to grow his fruit at home. It usually appears in the fourth year after planting the apex. Cultivation, subject to all the rules of care, allows you to get a fruit weighing up to 1.5 kg.And the fact that this tropical plant grows at home is an outstanding result to work for!
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