HOW
VANILLA
GROWS
Vanilla Sanctuary
Being surrounded by vanilla is a tangible, practical experience of thriving. If a tree falls and nearby vanilla vines suddenly start getting too much sun, they make their way somewhere else. Nothing gets in the way of their thriving.
The shade house provides reliable shade, and we make sure the vanilla there is growing in the best possible growing medium. Although we have irrigation, it turns out we don’t need it because it rains here most nights or early mornings, which provides just enough moisture and humidity for the vines to thrive.
While the tendrils’ or aerial roots’ primary function is climbing, they can also absorb moisture and nutrients from the air and surfaces they attach to. In the shade house, the vanilla climbs up a bamboo trellis and is trained back down. When it touches the soil, it reroots and sends nutrients to support any new growth from that point on. At night, the plant’s pores open to absorb dew and moisture.
HAND POLLINATION
Each January when it’s relatively cold and dry in Hawai’i, we do something called tipping, which is breaking off the new growth to induce the vines to produce flowers. We’ll start to see blossoms in March, and they require pollination around the end of March. After pollination, the plant stops feeding off its ground roots and supports itself epiphytically (getting air, moisture and nutrients through its tendrils) as the vanilla beans begin to grow.
Vanilla pollination in Hawai’i is an intricate process. We don’t have the bee that pollinates vanilla in other countries, so we do it by hand. And while vanilla vines are hardy, growing up to two feet a month, their blossoms and the new vine growth (apical) are quite delicate. Just turning a plant around to access a flower might cause it to break off.
Each vanilla flower opens for just five or six hours per day in the morning, and if you miss that window, there’s not another chance to pollinate. So every morning for about a month and a half, we examine all our vanilla plants and pollinate flowers that are open. A raceme or flower cluster can produce seven to 15 flowers, and we pollinate about half of them to avoid over taxing the plant.
After pollination, it takes nine months for a vanilla bean to mature. During the last three months, the plant starts feeding from the ground roots again to help the bean ripen. When the tip of the bean starts to turn yellow, it is picked and the 4- to 6-month curing process begins.
