Pineapple Cycles and the Commercial Supply Chain
Pineapple cultivation can be a complex and highly technical process. During cultivation, pineapple flowering may be delayed or occur unevenly throughout the crop. However, it is highly desirable to attain uniform maturity and to control the time of harvest in order to avoid overproduction in the peak periods. In 1874, in the Azores archipelago, it was accidentally discovered that exposure to smoke would bring pineapple plants into bloom in six weeks. The realization that ethylene was the activating ingredient in the smoke led to the development of other cultivating methods. In recent decades, a more advanced method for timing the pineapple flowering has been the use of a hormone, 1-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA), which induces the formation of ethylene. This treatment is given when the plants are six months old, which is three months before their natural flowering time. Plants treated with NAA produce long, cylindrical, pointed fruits, maturing over an extended period, ripening first at the base while the apex is still unripe. Ethylene treatments result in a square shouldered, shorter fruit maturing over a shorter period and ripening more uniformly.
Pineapple Cycles and the Commercial Supply Chain
Pineapple plants need many macro and micronutrients in order to flourish, the most important of which are nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. Therefore, they need to be fertilized in order to generate the expected yields and almost all of the plant nutrition is done with spray boom applications. As such, a hectare of pineapple can generate up to 91,000 kilograms of fruit. However, adequate execution of the nutrition package during the year of cultivation as well as controlled applications of fungicide and herbicide are needed to maintain optimum yields. Meanwhile, the use of a plastic bedding throughout the pineapple plantation, a common practice in organic agriculture, is used to limit the growth of weeds and has shown excellent results in producing pineapples with no herbicide applications. Likewise, the manual work of weeding is significantly reduced when plastic is used. Moreover, plants are able to generate foliage quicker and soil moisture contents are maximized during the summer when plastic bedding is used.
As Farmfolio embarks on a new journey with its Panama Golden Pineapple offering, we seek to maximize yields through both natural and organically induced flowering and fruit ripening. This ensures that consumers will have high quality and ripe pineapples available to them at their local retailer. Once pineapples ripen in the fields, workers cut and collect them for transport to the pack house. Farmfolio’s pineapples will be sorted manually according to the quality criteria agreed upon by the management team, based on the variety, weight, shape, and maturity, amongst other factors. Finally, processing in the pack house includes several steps which are crucial to international commercialization. Before being shipped and sold to consumers, the pineapples are polished and go through a final selection at the pack house. Depending on international pricing and market preferences, the pineapple are weighed, boxed, and sent out for shipment.