Sustainable Management Practices for Vanilla Cultivation

View the project final report

Commodities

• Additional Plants: vanilla

Practices

• Crop Production: crop improvement and selection, fertilizers, nutrient management, organic fertilizers, pollination

Vanilla has the potential to be the highest-grossing agricultural commodity per acre available to growers in Florida, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, but foundational strategies for cultivation are lacking. Vanilla is the vining orchid species that produces vanilla “beans” (seed capsules) from which natural vanilla extract is produced. Management practices of domestic vanilla production have not yet been developed.  Since there is a nearly insatiable demand for natural vanilla extract, the USA being the largest importer, domestic growers located in favorable growing climates could greatly benefit from diversifying their agribusiness with this alternative crop. Therefore, responding to and supporting the rising interest in the crop, we propose developing responsible guidelines for vanilla production in the subtropical United States.

As a new crop, growing recommendations are necessary to prevent the overuse of chemical inputs, decrease costs, and harvest a uniform high-quality crop; all of which sustains farms’ economic viability and will establish a sustainable mindset during the early stages of vanilla adoption. One of the highest production costs (~40%) is manual pollination, but natural pollinators have only been minimally investigated. The promotion of natural pollinators could provide a significant economic benefit and at the same time incentivize reduced pesticide. Data for the comparison of different cultivars has yet to be made available. Publishing cultivar characteristics would allow growers to choose the highest yielding and best quality types that are best fit for their growing system. Through these efforts, we hope to contribute to enhanced grower profitability, improved yields, and reduced chemical inputs.

1. Develop input recommendations for conventional and organic vanilla nutrition management.

This first objective tests the efficacy of conventional and organic fertilizer rates on plant growth. Internationally, vanilla is commercially cultivated by most small acreage farmers without the input of any fertilization; however, this is unlikely to be the adopted strategy for domestic growers. Facilitating both organic and conventional cultivation will provide growers with options to meet their target markets. This objective will be met with two one-year experiments. First, an idea of the crop nutritional requirements for vanilla will be established, and second, a test of conventional and organic fertilizer sources will be performed. For the first experiment a Florida-adapted micro-propagated clone, V. planifolia 'Painter', will be established in 1-gallon pots with 14 treatments covering a range of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium application rates. The second experiment will be designed to have conventional and organic fertilizer treatments matching the optimum nitrogen rate based on the results of the first experiment. Plant growth rates will be recorded every two to six months to determine the optimal fertilization regimes. All treatments will be statistically evaluated using ANOVA and Tukey's T-test of honest significant difference (HSD) in the R statistical software.

2. Discover and promote native pollination of vanilla.

The second objective is to discover which insects act as native vanilla pollinators in South Florida. We will collaborate with an entomologist, local farmer, and local park biologists to plan the locations and times for observing pollinator activity. We plan to use camera traps to record pollinator visits and quantify the number of pollinators visiting flowers and identify the pollinator species. If possible, a small sample of pollinators will be captured to confirm identification and for photography records. A sub-objective will be to describe as best as possible the environment that promotes the habitation of the targeted pollinators. On-farm and natural environment observations will be done in year one and if an appropriate pollinator is found, in year two we will attempt to acquire, attract, and house as possible the pollinators in a shade house environment. Camera traps will then be used to verify pollinator patronage to vanilla flowers in the shade house.

3. Generate phenotypic data for potential commercial vanilla accessions.

This last objective is to generate yield and quality information to rank the potential of accessions for commercial production. The primary determinant of vanilla extract quality is the abundance of vanillin in vanilla extract, which can be quantified using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Other plant and bean traits essential for vanilla production include disease prevalence, bean length, bean diameter, number of beans per raceme, weight of cured beans, and aroma-flavor composition of cured bean extracts. This project leverages the vanilla germplasm collection at TREC. All traits will be evaluated individually in the software R and accessions will then be ranked accordingly to select appropriate high-performing genotypes.