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Clarence's Bourbon Vanilla Grow Update and Grow Guide (post #75)

Clarence

FUZZY WUZZY
Veteran
Just thought I would share the progress of my beautiful vanilla planifolia plants. Well it's turned out quite successful so far. Check out the following pics. Starting with the first inflorescence back in June 2017 til the maturing vanilla bean pods today.

 

Capt.Ahab

Feeding the ducks with a bun.
Veteran
Wow Clarence. That's really cool. Very impressive.
I remember you posting photos of the vanilla plant a year or two ago.
Good to see you back and posting.
 

Clarence

FUZZY WUZZY
Veteran
So far this has been going about 6 years from when I received the cuttings. I will be harvesting in march/ April 2018. Then there is a 9 month curing process.
 

weedtoker

Active member
Veteran
Wow, can you explain a bit more of the conditions they were in/ how to they got to be so pretty sized and fruiting?

In anyway, sweet harvest, in it's due time.
cheers
 
P

pangolin

They are a picture of health, really beautiful! You should be justifiably very proud of your work here :woohoo:

no straightforward task bringing on the fruits in a houseplant situation.

Great to see you around, hope you are feeling better these days:comfort:
 

Zelindor

Active member
Hey Bro, Better late than never...sorry! Just seen your message and I'm so happy you did it !! Hope your doing well, would be nice to talk again..
Cheers!!
 

Clarence

FUZZY WUZZY
Veteran
Hey Bro, Better late than never...sorry! Just seen your message and I'm so happy you did it !! Hope your doing well, would be nice to talk again..
Cheers!!

Couldn't have done it without you bro. Just waiting for them to ripen so I can harvest. Should be in the next few weeks.:woohoo:
 

Clarence

FUZZY WUZZY
Veteran
Wow, can you explain a bit more of the conditions they were in/ how to they got to be so pretty sized and fruiting?

In anyway, sweet harvest, in it's due time.
cheers

Sooo. Where do I start. I guess from when I received the cuttings. Each cutting was approx 1m long. I constructed a frame out of two u-shaped bamboo canes at right angles to each other. Next was the growing medium. I mixed half coir with half bio bizz all mix. To this I added a little extra perlite, mycorrihzal fungi and bat guano.

From the cuttings the bottom two leaves were removed and then left to heal. The cutting then placed into the growing medium, deep enough to cover the two removed leaf nodes, next to one cane and secured to the cane. I had three cuttings done the same way. They were placed in a south facing bay window. I have light coloured drop blinds so dropped them half way down so there was not too much direct sun.

Vanilla planifolia is an orchid in the form of a vine. I believe it's the only fruiting orchid but could be wrong. Unlike most other orchids it requires regular watering. The medium has lots of air gaps and spaces in it so that the adventitious roots can easily search for water and not get so damp they rot. Eventually, after few weeks, you get a growing tip which sprouts out of the top of one of the leaf nodes. This will then grow as long as it wants or til the tip breaks off or is broken off.

I then would wind the growing vine up and down the canes. If you break the tip off you generally end up with multiple shoots growing. In summer months I used a weaker orchid fertilizer once a month. It doesn't actually need much ferts. The growing shoots grew like this for about 5.5 years before I finally got flowers. I'm sure it can be done quicker. I'm not entirely sure how I managed to do it.

Depending on the location around the world the flowering dates change. I have a list somewhere of many different places but strangely enough the UK was not on it so it was trial and error. I think I stumbled over it by dumb luck. The idea is to grow one shoot off the main vine to about 25 leaf nodes long. Then the growing tip is broken off about 3 leaf nodes back from the apex. Where the stem is from 0.5 to 1cm thick.This is apparently the method they use in Madagascar. Anyway it worked.

5 inflorescences then grew out again from the top of the leaf nodes. Each stalk has multiple flower buds on. Once they come to opening they basically open one at a time early in the morning. They need to be manually pollinated by hand which is a tricky manoeuvre involving ripping the main flower, lifting a flap with a tooth pick and stick the sexy bits together. You only have several hours to do this before the flower dies and falls off. If you are successful the flower does not fall off but slowly dies and remains attatched to the plant. After recording which flowers successfully pollinated I found that pollinating late morning/ midday ish was the best.

Then over the next couple of weeks you will see the ovary lengthen and start to swell. This then turns into the vanilla pods. Fully grown now the pods range from 15 to 25cm long and 1 to 2cm thick. Commercially the pods are graded by length and thickness.

Then it was just a matter of waiting 9 months for the pods to grow and mature. Which is where I am at currently. In the next couple few weeks they will show that they are ripe by turning yellow on the tips. If the ends start splitting they are about to go too far.

Hope that helps:thank you:
 
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aridbud

automeister
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Gorgeous! Well done, Clarence! Thanks for detailed explanation. Vanilla envy (in a good way!).
 

Clarence

FUZZY WUZZY
Veteran
I'll update this as I progress. The whole 9 months killing, sweating, drying and curing thing sounds daunting. But I have endless documents to help. It's all a careful balance thing.

Two ways to kill the growth of the pods are blanching or freezing.
Then jumping between sweating in cotton cloths in a wooden box and exposing to direct light.
Then drying to a specific water % by mass.
Then the final curing.

This all to maximise the vanillin content to give maximum aroma and flavour without creating mould.

Arghhhhhh!:tiphat:
 

Clarence

FUZZY WUZZY
Veteran
So harvest time arrived.




438g. I don't know if that's good or not. but i'll take it.
The beans are graded on how long they are so:

grade 1 beans are >15cm
grade 2 beans are 10 - 15cm
grade 3 beans are <10cm
grade 4 beans are split, cut or damaged beans.

Here are my beans. The ones on the right are grade 1 and the ones on the left grade 2.



Next is processing them to bring out the vanillin smell and flavour. This is killing, sweating, drying and curing.

Killing: The beans are separated into their grades And placed into 65 - 70 celsius water for the relevant times.

grade 1 for 5 mins
grade 2 for 4 mins
grade 3 for 2 mins
grade 4 for 1.5 mins.

This kills off the growth of the beans and stops them overmaturing and splitting at the end.
 
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Clarence

FUZZY WUZZY
Veteran
Next is the sweating. The beans wrapped in cheese cloth and are transferred into a wooden box. I have used my faithful Gypsy Nirvana owl eye stash box with all the gubbins removed. St the end of this stage the beans should have turned light brown and should start release some aroma.




They then need to be kept at 48 - 50 celsius for 36 - 48 hrs. I am having to make this environment by using the oven in dough proving mode and have set the temp at 48 celsius.



So there we are. The final process is under way. After the sweating has finished we will then haft to dry. This requires the beans to be spread in the hot sun for 3 hrs a day on a black blanket and kept at around 50 celsius. Again I will need to improvise so I will use a grow lamp. The beans are then swapped between sunning and sweating in the box. Again depending on the grade of beans this process takes a different time

Grade 1 take 12 - 14 days
Grade 2 take 7 - 10 days
grade 3 and 4 take 5 - 7 days.

The beans should lose half their initial weight in this period and should turn dark brown with wrinkles. Also an improvement in aroma.

After this is the curing process which i will update once starting it.

Cheers C:tiphat:
 
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