A fully mature pineapple will sometimes have seeds. Hobby gardeners who like to experiment and breed new varieties can sow them. The following instructions show the way to successful propagation by sowing the seeds.
Harvesting seeds is a matter of luck
The cultivated pineapple from the supermarket rarely contains seeds. Since seeds are undesirable in modern fruit, they are bred away without further ado. Contributing to this is the fact that pineapple plants are self-sterile. As a result, the fruit thrives without pollination - no pollination - no seeds. If you are lucky, you can still catch a specimen with seeds.
Choose a particularly large fruit, because up to 30 seeds can be hidden here. They can be discovered 5-15 millimeters under the brown shell. With a length of 2-3 millimeters, a width of 1 millimeter and their reddish-brown color, they clearly stand out from the golden-yellow flesh.
Professional sowing of pineapple seeds
If the harvested and cleaned kernels are in front of you, they first receive a pre-treatment. If seeds come from a pulp, they are always provided with a hard shell to inhibit sprouting. Since they are too small to rough up the casing with a file, they are soaked. Soak the pineapple seeds in lukewarm water for 24 hours. Then handle the sowing as follows:
- fill small growing pots (€16.68) with peat sand, perlite (€37.51) or commercial seed soil
- put a seed 1-2 centimeters deep in it and sieve thinly
- Spray with lukewarm rainwater or water from below
In order to get the seeds ready to germinate, a temperature of 28-30 degrees Celsius and a humidity of more than 80 percent are required. Ideally, a heatable mini greenhouse (€7.95) is available for this purpose. Alternatively, put a plastic bag over each potty. As a rule, the seeds take 8-12 weeks to germinate. During this time they must not be exposed to direct sunlight.
tips and tricks
Did you know that a pineapple is not a single fruit, but a group of more than 100 berries? These close together around a fleshy inflorescence axis in the middle of the juicy-sweet pulp. This fruit axis is also edible, but not very popular due to its hard consistency.
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