Cocoa - Seeds - Pre-order (shipping in June)

Other names: Cacao tree / Cacaotree

Tree native to the Amazon basin, whose fruit is used as the main ingredient in chocolate. The cocoa beans or seeds are dried, fermented, and roasted to produce chocolate and cocoa butter. Cultivated for consumption for around 5,500 years, it grows in rich soils under the shade of taller trees such as coconut palms and banana plants.

It is an evergreen species that requires high humidity and warmth. The leaves are large and elongated, about 30–40 cm long, alternate, elliptical, and hang from the petiole. It flowers year-round, with clusters emerging directly from the trunk or older branches, with pink, star-shaped flowers. The cacao fruit is a large berry, called a pod, up to 30 cm long, yellow to reddish-brown in color, with a thick rind enclosing thirty to fifty seeds covered in a fleshy white pulp.

How to sow Cacao seeds

Cacao seeds have a very short viability, around 5–7 days after being separated from the pulp. They must be sown as soon as they are mature, in individual containers, in the shade.

Prepare pots of at least 9 cm with seed-starting mix and moisten it. Clean the pulp from the seeds and place one seed in each pot, on its side. Cover the pots with a thin layer of substrate or vermiculite, mist with water to moisten and allow the soil to stick to the seed. Place the containers inside a greenhouse or indoors near a window with indirect light. You can cover them with plastic film. They need a temperature between 20 and 30 °C.

As fungi tend to grow, ventilate the pots daily. You can also use a fungicide product preventively.

They have no dormancy period and cannot be stored.

Other facts and recommendations

In its natural habitat, it grows best with temperatures between 20 and 30 °C.

Cacao trees reach peak production at 4–5 years of age.

Although it flowers year-round, it typically produces two harvests per year.

The main cacao-producing countries are Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Indonesia.

Cacao trees can be damaged by temperatures below 10 °C, so they should be protected during cold seasons.

It is pollinated by tiny flies.