PlantFiles: Pineapple
Ananas comosus

i love pineapple soo much, as a house plant, and as a food. but it is neutral because when i eat fresh pineapple (canned pineapple is just no good) i get addicted to it and eat the whole thing!! and because it is soooooo acidic, my lips bleed! thankfuly its not much, but just enough for my friends and fam. to ask if i got punched in the face (LOL) oh well, its worth bleeding for.lol

I have not grown this plant. After being introduced in Florida and Puerto Rico, Pineapple (Ananas comosus) has become naturalized.

I bought a pineapple plant from Home Depot last spring that already had a fruit growing. It never got very big, and I ended up sticking the plant in the dirt after eating the fruit. I ended up with the original plant plus two suckers that caught up to their mama by the time I potted them up around Thanksgiving. They've all been quite happy in one large pot overwintering in my plastic-covered screened porch. Here's the cool thing, though. In July I threw a store-bought pineapple's top into the woods by my deck to dry out. I forgot about it for a few months and then noticed that it had rooted in the ground. I again forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago (end of January) and it was still living. I didn't notice what it was at first when I was picking up dead stuff back there and picked the pineapple top up. Only then did I realize I had uprooted the poor thing. I stuck it back in the ground and it's not looking so good now, but I am definitely going to try to overwinter one outdoors next winter. The temp has been down into the low 20s a few times, but it hasn't stayed below freezing for more than a few hours at a time. Several days in the 70s so far this winter (including today).

Growing a pineapple from what would otherwise be a discarded top is a fun and easy project. It requires a bit of patience, however, since it will probably be 2 - 3 years before you see a fruit forming. It is exciting, though, when the sudden blush of red occurs in the topmost leaves of the pineapple plant -- a sure sign that the flowers and fruit will follow.

The methods described above are probably the best way to ensure success, but I must admit to growing pineapples by just sticking the cut off top with some fruit flesh remaining into potting soil and let nature run its course. A few years ago, a Puerto Rican friend showed me the correct method of peeling off the bottom leaves to expose the small rhizomes (as described above) and that trick does seem to produce faster rooting.

My pineapples grow outdoors in my garden in Zone 8b/9a with no winter protection and some winter temperatures as low as 28 F on a few nights, so I think the pineapples are certainly more cold hardy than Zone 11 as listed above. I grow mine in a sunny location with some afternoon shade.

Jeremy

Of all the wonderful things one can grow from
leftovers of fruits and vegetables, pineapples
are one of my favorites!

So easy to grow!

The first lesson I learned was not to try rescuing
a half dead pineapple. It is best to begin with a pineapple
that has both healthy foliage and good fruit. Once you
have the method of choosing a pineapple down, the
rest is simply a procedure.

Simply grab the foliage in one hand while holding the
fruit in your other hand, holding the foliage close to
the fruit. Twist and presto, it comes off. Now just slice
the fruity pointed end off the end of the section with the
foliage. Not too much, but enough so that you have
removed all the fleshy stuff.

Next, begin peeling off the leaves one by one in the
order they come, staring at the end.
You can tell which leaf should be
removed first - it is closest to the end you just trimmed.
As you begin removing leaves, you will see tiny white
roots sticking out of the end. Continue peeling until
you have exposed about an inch to an inch and a half.
Do not remove all of the foliage.

A forcing vase intended for bulbs works quite well when
rooting a Pineapple. Simply insert the peeled end into
the vase, then fill with water until the peeled section
shwoing white roots is now submerged in water.
Keep the water fresh, change
it often - daily if you are able. In a few weeks you will
see many roots. When the roots are several inches long,
you can plant it in cactus soil, which is readily found at
your local store with a garden section.

Water once a week, don't overwater it, make sure
the excess water is drained. Pretty soon
you will see new leaves growing from the center
of your plant.

Very fun!

Crowns are VERY easy to grow... rooted one 2 years ago, forced it to produce a fruit back in June- just picked the ripe fruit last week- it was delicious! Am now rooting the crown off of the fruit that was produced. I'm a teacher; my students thought it was to see the pineapple!

This is my 3rd generation "Dole" golden pineapple. A great example of garbage gardening. I will get three to four suckers and one top from this pineapple to use to make more of them. A very sweet tasting hybred pineapple. They like plenty of sun and they require minimal care. To make one, buy a pineapple and save the cut off top. Let the cut section dry out and become callous. It should be ready in about a week or so. Place it on decent dirt in a container and push it slightly into the dirt. Water moderately. In a month or so you should notice new growth. Find a nice sunny spot and let it go. The first year it will grow into a nice looking bromilead. The second year in the spring a new smaller more colorful top emerges from the center then shortly thereafter you begin to see the little pineapple form. Mine typically are full grown and ripe for eating the end of July.

This is one of the easiest fruit producing plants to grow. The method I use is cutting off the crown with 1 inch of the top of the fruit. Pull away the fruit leaving the central core at the base of the crown. I usually put this upside down in a dry place and leave it there for a day. The next day I pull off all bit 5 leaves and put it into a pot to root. Within a week it should begin rooting.

In the past almost every settler between New Smyrna and Jupiter, Fl had a pineapple patch in their yard and Florida produced tons of pineapples. Unfortunately droughts and pests reduced the crops and cheaper Cuban pineapples led to the demise of Florida's commercial pineapple industries. Still there are lots of people growing pineapples in Central and Southern Florida nowadays.

They grow best in full sun and with a balanced 10-10-10 fertilizer (I use slow release every 3 months). I even use some as borders along a porch. Cold, non freezing weather actually encourages the plant to bloom but I heard of a technique to get it to bloom. Once it is two years old place an apple or two by the plant and cover it with a clear plastic bag. The ethylene gas released by the apples is supposed to induce flowering.

Hi
We are on the Big Island of Hawaii, Kona coffee country.
We also are growing yellow and white pineapple.
Last year I compared a very sweet yellow pineapple against a white pineapple. I ate a bite of the yellow first, and it was sweet! Then I ate a bite of the white pineapple and it was sweeter than the yellow. So if you can get them, by far the white pineapples are better. We harvested over 40 white pineapples this year.
Tonight my Mom cut open a store bought yellow pineapple and found seeds in it. This is the first pineapple that we have found seeds in. So this was the reason I got on the internet, to see if anyone had found seeds. We always plant the crown off of the pineapple and it grows. Since the soil here in Hawaii is perfect for growing, pineapple does well here, along with other fruit that we have in the garden. For instance I have never seen figs so big!
We also have oranges, lemons, avocado, cherimoya, mango, Kona Coffee, guava, grapefruit, tangerine, tomato, star apple, loquat, star fruit, soursop, sapodilla, mangosteen, sapote, macadamia, papaya, coconut, passion fruit, rambutan, lychee, and miracle fruit. We also have this tropical apricot, melon passion fruit (lilikoi) and some kind of a tomato tree.
But seeds in a pineapple throw me....
Never seen that in all the years of eating pineapple.

We have 2 plants in the sandy ground now,with one in a pot and a new fruit that I just harvested. I usualy just lop off the top(greenery) and plant. They seem to frow just fine that way. My big question is everyone tells me that the plants should be a lot bigger. We live in an area that was originally pineapple plantations. What would be the proper way to grow them in a garden area, soil wise, sun etc.

when my son was in early grade school we planted a couple of crowns in pots. They did surprisingly well and one grew a miniature pineapple. very cute. unfortunaterly the plant died immediately thereafter. have recently put a couple of crowns in ground and will see how they do.

A pineapple seed is one of the rarest things in this world. This is because pineapples have been cultivated by native americans since several centuries before the europeans arived, and they selected the seedless plants, becuase it was probably easier to eat. The natives did, in their own way, a great job of genetic improvement of this species.

I'm not sure of the proper names, but we grow two types of pineapples in our yard. One looks like the regular, pineapple found in most markets, with yellow and sligthly acidic pulp and what we call Hawaiian white pineapple, which, as the name implies is almost white flesh and very sweet and juicy. Our pineapples get to be quite large. On taking some to my sister living in the mainland, she planted the tops in pots and has been able to grow the Hawaiian white and produce fruit in Miami.
We let the plants stay in the ground after producing, at least one more year and some of them will have a second harvest, with the pineapple itself being a bit smaller than the first harvest, but much sweeter and juicier.

Pineapples can be divided into the following two (2) groups of cultivars:

(A) CAYENNE
Most of the varieties of Pineapple sold in the international market belong to this group.

A1: SMOOTH CAYENNE
Distinguished by their yellow-orange coloration, these exports from the Central and West Africa are sold all over the world.

A2: CHAMPAKA
A derivative of the Smooth Cayenne and distinguished by their dark green external coloration when ripe, these are grown mainly in Central America and are sold in the northern markets of the European Union.

A3: MD2
Known also as the Extra Sweet and grown in Central America, they are distinguished by low acidity, a deep orange external coloration and yellow flesh.

(B) QUEEN
Grown in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Mauritius and the Reunion Islands, the VICTORIA variety belonging to this group is a smaller fruit with a delicate flavor and is targeted mainly for a top-of-the-range “niche” market.

I saw some pineapples growing in large pots yesterday in the yard of some friends in a fairly sunny spot. They said pineapples overwinter nicely in a cool greenhouse here in Northcentral Florida, zone 8b, and the that flavor of a fully ripened pineapple is much better than any fruit bought in a store. So now I'm on the lookout for some good pineapples to start in big pots for myself.

Very easy to grow from a top, and that way, they come true to variety. The top will have a stub of the core in the center of it. Allow the flesh and skin around this stub of the core to soften, then remove it. Plant the core up to the bottom leaves on the top in a well-drained medium. I grow mine in 30-gallon nursery pots, one plant per pot.

There are two things pineapples like--one is moisture, so don't let it dry out [but make sure it's well drained], and two, fertilizer, so feed it heavily. I plant mine [I currently have 10 that are fruiting] in sandy loam into which I have mixed liberal amounts of blood, bone, and cottonseed meal. Every now and them, I give each of them a handful of ozmocote. They take about 18 months from planting the top to producing a fruit.

I started my patch about 5 years ago with tops from Dole and Del Monte "top of the line" fruit and have not been sorry that I passed by less expensive fruit from Mexico and Guatamala.

One last note. My cat's vet says there is nothing like pineapple juice to dissolve a hairball in a cat's digestive tract. She says she wears horse-hide gloves when she administers this treatment to a cat, however.

Toxicity

When unripe, the pineapple is not only inedible but poisonous, irritating the throat and acting as a drastic purgative.

Excessive consumption of pineapple cores has caused the formation of fiber balls (bezoars) in the digestive tract

This comes from the [HYPERLINK@www.hort.purdue.edu] wedsite.

Easy to grow from the top of a fruit. Allow to dry 1-2 weeks after cutting top. Root in moist medium (your choice) that drains well. Water once a week.

To get blooms on plants over 1 year old use apple slices around ground and in the leaves for three days, then remove slices. (some even place a large bag over the plant to trap the gases overnight) The apples put off a gas that makes the pineapple bloom. Allow fruit to turn yellow/gold halfway up before picking. Pineapples will not ripen further when removed from plant.