I started one in water about 35 years ago. It will get white claw like roots after a while. Then you peel away the excess flesh (it will stink so you may want to take it outside to do that), and If your cat doesn't kill it like mine did, you plant it. I should try it again to. Good luck with yours! Marg

I keep wanting to try this too. I've seen discussions about it in propagation, FL, edible landscape... lots of reading and pics in various GW forums if you need inspiration. Keep us posted!

Clean the crown really well, and it should root within days.
As soon as root primordia appear, plant it immediately in an appropriate mix -
porous, coarse, free-draining. As it becomes established, fertilize frequently.

Josh

I didn't have good luck with my attempt on rooting a pineapple this fall. I tried rooting in water, changing out the water every few days, but after a month it got smelly and turned to mush. I look forward to hearing about your experiment and hearing any tips!

Water rooting is pretty much the most disgusting thing I've seen with pineapples.
But to each their own :-) My sister is rooting a second pineapple in water right now.
She has a nice plant in a big pot that thrives outdoors from Spring to Fall up here
in northern California, 2,500 feet elevation.

Josh

Howdy,

Marjie. Years ago I rooted pineapple in soil, and it worked..but as time went by, it never produced a baby pineapple, 'impatience on my part,' so it went in the trash.

I tried rooting pineapples years later, but they never rooted. What the heck went wrong?? lol.

Good luck. Keep us posted which method works, and, 'in the future,' produces a baby.

BTW, be sure to remove pineapple meat, otherwise it can rot.

Margie, have you ever tried rooting avocado pits? If ever you buy an avocado, give it a shot.

Last week I made tacos. Whenever we have tacos I buy avocados to make Guacamole.
The pits of both avocados were the size of marbles. I've never seen such small pits. lol.

Anyway, good luck w/your pineapple experiment.

Hey Marg, Purple, Josh and Rachel. Toni

Uhoh, if there's a smell, that means something's decomposing. Very few plants are actually designed/able to grow roots in water before they rot.

I'm guilty of trying to do a million things in water, but let's be honest with ourselves about whether this is easier or not. It really is an extra step. I also think it's kind of pessimistic, like "if it roots, I'll find it a pot." Assume it will and start out right from the jump! The next effort you should have to make is when it needs a permanent home in the ground or a bigger pot. Since I gave up most water efforts in lieu of just doing it outside in soil, most propagation efforts have been successful. Not counting sure-fire water-rooters like Coleus or most vines, aerial roots in general.)

That said, it's kind of the opposite if you live in a cold place and it's winter... and you're bored... and you've never tried it yet... Anything is worth a try if you're willing to risk a smelly mess that needs to be cleaned up. But it's not like you're going to ignore it after you first notice it if it happens. Or just risk failure, but that's always a risk, isn't it? As long as you don't tell yourself, this is the best way to do this, the best time, I just say good luck! Any success is a bonus with something you were just going to compost/discard anyway.

You can always try again outside when it warms up... hopefully next to the one you're starting now. Good vibes!

This guy seems to be speaking from experience and mentions letting it dry for a couple days first to mitigate rotting.

The smell I was talking about came from the pulp that was decomposing. Following the instructions I had at the time, I cut about about 1/2" below the crown. I set it in water and roots started to grow in the pulp. Instructions were to pull away the pulp. When I had the pulp pulled away I got rid of the smell. I then saw the healthy white roots. I planted it and it grew for a while before the killer cat got it.

Great advice, Purple! I completely agree.

Hey, Toni, good to see you! Sometimes, pineapples have the center-most rosette removed.
If so, it is quite unlikely that the crown will root. When purchasing pineapples, make sure
that the foliage is fully intact.

Good luck!

Josh

Hey, Toni, we were typing at the same time!

Purple, there's a lot of typing going on today..:)

I forgot about allowing pineapple to air dry before rooting.
Makes sense since Bromiliads are succulent, and 'many' succulents need a few days w/o water/soil before placing in soil.

You gave up rooting in water? Wow!
You posted a pic with several bottles filled w/water and cuttings..What happened?

Except for succulents, I haven't luck rooting most cuttings in soil.
A stem from my Hoya broke off last week. I KNOW if it goes in soil it'll kick the bucket, so it's sitting in water.

One pro attempting to root pineapples, avocados or beans, if purchased as an edible, 'not for plant purposes,' and the experiment fails, nothing is really lost. Right? On the other hand, if the experiment is successful, you've got yourself a free plant.

Hey Josh...Actually, I haven't any plans rooting a pineapple, but I agree..foliage should be healthy, firm and green, 'without too many bends and mars, if possible.'

wow- didn't expect this kind of response! :D

I did read that water rooting can smell bad, but it wasn't a "bad" thing, just remove it and it should be fine... was recommended to do this part outdoors-- gee, wonder why?? ;)

But it is something new for me to do. My DH is going to have to put more shelves up in this little room of ours if I keep this up. Sure wish I could trust mom not to mess with them in the living room. She almost distroyed one yesterday, got lucky with that one. (But she is for another thread)

But at any rate, yes, new for me to try this and I am looking forward to what ever happens with it. :) Nothing ventured, nothing gained.. right?? ;)

Marjie

Thanks, Josh ;)

Toni, I said most, girl. You've seen my pics, there's hundreds of Coleus here in water. That's not an experiment to me, that's a plan, tried'n'true. And I do still experiment. For example, I wanted to snap a branch off of one of the plants in a multi-plant pot of Cordyline fruticosa to see what would happen to it in water. But it didn't snap where expected, and came away with some roots. Interesting. I washed the soil off and put it in water. That was a few weeks ago and since it still looks so great, I snapped the other branch crowding the middle of the pot, and it did the same thing. They're in the same cup together. I'll get them some "dirt" soon, when I get back into that kind of thing.

On the Sans forum, I saw pics of leaves people had rooted in water and tried that experiment. All 3 leaves I tried made roots, and are now making pups, a span of 5-6 months.

Throughout the summer, I'll trim bits off of this, pieces off of that, stick them in water "for a few minutes until I find a pot." Sometimes that happens, sometimes, a month goes by...

From what I saw on google, people do pineapple regularly in water too, not sure sure it's an experiment either, but that's a good word the first time a particular person tries it. Am I just picking fly poo out of pepper now?

Good point about beans! Every bean I've tried sprouting out of the bag of "15 bean soup" that every store seems to have will grow except the split ones. Throw that "flavor packet" away, btw... Way cheaper than buying seeds for more than 2 kinds of beans!

My son loves to watch carrot tops sprout new leaves in water.

If you want some cheap decorative vines to grow up a post for summer, plant a sweet potato. Morning-glory-like flowers, attractive leaves. Chop in pieces to have several.

Marjie, Right!

I don't know how tall a potted pineapple, grown indoors gets, but those at the conservatory, 'in-ground,' and a group sold at Home Depot, 'potted' were tall...Too tall for a shelf..

Their tops were so large and heavy the pots kept tipping over. This happened when I worked there. Don't know how many times I picked them up.

The only other time HD had pineapples, 'I quit,' they were individually placed in clear plastic bags. Plastic helped, but leaf weight still knocked them down.
Eventually, someone stacked every pineapple between shelves, but leaves were bent over.

Shelf tiers would need be adjustable to fit taller plants.
Good luck in your quest.. :)

Purple, as soon as I clicked submit, I thought, oh oh.
When I said you/yourself, (experiement) I meant you, 'not you, Purple,' in general...
Not you, you, but anyone you..lol
Speaking of experimenting...maybe too much in my younger days...lol. j/k of course!

Don't know if they're still around, but do you remember Cordyline/Ti plant logs? Two logs came in a plastic bag, for, ahem, 1.00!!!
Logs were rooted in water.
Hopefully your Cordy remains in good health.

I have NO idea how Sans can be rooted in water. That'd be more difficult than rooting Hoya cuttings.
I didn't see the thread on the Sans Forum, but heard others talk, in older threads, about rooting Sans in water. Well, I'll be!

I buy the 15 bean soup beans for my birds. lol. Never tried rooting a bean, but it'd be an interesting 'experiment.' For the birds sake. Flavor packets contain too much salt..birds could get sick or worse if they injest too much. So it goes in the trash.

Same with bird seed. If they sprout, seeds are fresh, if not, more than likely they're old and stale.

How do you root carrots in water?

Purple, sweet potatoes are sprayed with a retardant which prevents growth. I remember reading this topic on a book called Starting from Scratch.
So, I went to the store, bought a couple sweet potatoes, and sure enough..nothing, nada.
BTW, I bought sp's at different stores with the same results.

The only SP's I now grow are Ornamental types. lol. Toni

Yes, I remember ti logs when I was a kid. I always wanted one but not enough to spend "my" money. They should bring those back! What kind of Cordyline are/were those?

Carrots - just set the top in a dish so the bottom is touching water. Sometimes they sprout before they rot, sometimes not. Probably works on soil too but the water thing is cool so we can see when tiny roots start to form. I've planted some in the garden but then forget to water them... so no actual carrots harvested yet. This summer should finally see some good results from veggies. I've been concentrating on getting the soil "good" which takes time...

I've heard about sweet potatoes being sprayed like that but I keep having good luck growing them. The ones here might not be sprayed since they don't have so far to go, or that could be seasonal, IDK. This reminds me, we need to go out there and see what potatoes we can find, I'm sure there's enough for a couple dinners if they haven't rotted in all of this rain lately. I would think this would be the time to try getting a non-sprayed one if that's possible up there.

So how's it going so far, Marjie? Anything to report?

Toni,
the leaves can be banged all to hell and back...that isn't the problem.
The problem is when the "center rosette" is removed at the factory/shipping facility.

I was at my sister's the other evening, and I snapped a quick pic of her pineapple.
I've been telling her to pot it in some properly draining mix - and in a smaller pot -
but she hasn't done so yet...not that now is the right time of year to do it, of course...

Josh

Hi, well, I guess something is happening, the roots that were there when I put it in water are getting somewhat longer (water needs changing tho) the leaves don't look too good, greying and drying up. Maybe this particular esperiment was a failure? But the roots look good,so IDK what is going on.

I haven't been able to plant the second one yet, going to try to get DH to do that this weekend. It is just sitting there wondering what it is going to do~~ lol

Will keep you all updated~~ :)
Marjie

ok- He finally got the second one for me-- lol, so it is going to be air drying for about a week or so, then put in soil. Or I may just put it in soil now, haven't decided yet,,, lol. He said it was getting old, and it looks it, so I hope it will be fine later on.

I PLAN on keeping track of it, dates, growth and whatnot, haven't done anything like in a life time!! wish me luck. ;)

but yeah, something new to "try" and maybe, just maybe, something will become of it....

Marjie

Cool, thanks for the updates!

Upload a pic to this discussion once in a while, say whatever you want to remember. It will keep unless it doesn't get added to in so long that it gets bumped out of circulation.

Purple, I remember ti logs, lol. Such a great memory!
One cost 50 cents at the Redondo Beach pier. I was a
young teen I think my allowance was $2 a week. Oh so
long ago. Along with macrame' it was a simple life.
Lamora, my DH makes a fermented drink from the pineapple
rinds by soaking them in water and sugar for weeks...yucky!
k