Think you'd have better luck getting a plant from rooting the top. I've never seen any info about growing from seeds...

Evan,
Yeah, I'm just going to try to grow them just to see if it works. If it does, cool, if it doesn't, oh well. Thanks.
Heather

I have grown Ananus lucidus from seed , it was easy , this sp. has lots of seed. i just sowed in a small pot with standard potting mix , and kept warm . Got several small pineapples in just a year.

I have my first sprouts from store bought fruit.

I planted them on top of cactus soil. Put them with the rest of my seeds on my bathroom floor. It took about one month. They are now sitting with the rest under my plant lights. There isn't enough light outside yet to keep them in a window. They are really small with one tiny leaf.

I don't know anything about growing this type of plant. I'm hoping for help now they are growing.

Hi again I've been reading up on this and found these two liks that mention seeds. Niether are very good.

http://www.ogtr.gov.au/pdf/ir/pineapple.pdf

http://plantsdatabase.com/go/803/Pineapple_Ananas_comosus.html

They don't give a lot of info. They are the only ones I found that said anything about seeds at all.

Heh - I cut and ate a Delmonte Gold pine and collected all the little black seeds and put them in a babyfood jar with a little water and closed the lid. I intended to plant them but forgot about them. Now, several months later, the jar is just about overgrown with dozens of little pineapple plants. Every once and a while I spritz a little water into it just enough to cover the bottom. One of these days I may plant them out. Problem is, tho, that Delmonte Gold's are heavily hybridized and crossed and all that neat stuffs - a cultivar, so I doubt the seeds will reproduce the qualities of the parent. It's still kinda neat tho...

There's a good reason you dont normally find seeds in grocery store Pineapples. At least the ones from Hawaii that is.

Excerpt from "Fruits of warm climates" by Julia F. Morton

"If the flowers are pollinated, small, hard seeds may be present, but generally one finds only traces of undeveloped seeds. Since hummingbirds are the principal pollinators, these birds are prohibited in Hawaii to avoid the development of undesired seeds."

Interesing bit of trivia huh...

Here is a link that might be useful: Fruits of Warm Climates

hey, just found this post when I was looking for info on the seeds.
I planted a few seeds and one did sprout. It's been almost a year and it is still less than half an inch. Are bromeliads this slow to grow or am I just doing something wrong? Thanks.

I planted about 50 seeds I got from a Hawaiian White Sugarloaf pineapple, and I think I got close to 100% germination in 1-2 months. I want to grow at least some of them to fruiting to see what comes out. The mother is spineless, so it will be interesting to see whether the babies have spines or not. We do have lots of hummingbirds here.

Eggo, try giving them some dilute 20-20-20, maybe 1/2 tablespoon per gallon of water... they probably just need some fertilizer.

Bryan
Puerto Rico

Hi Bryan, thanks for the growing tips, I will try them. I checked out my little tiny seedling recently to see what gives, pulled it out and it had no roots, haha. I guess that explains a lot. ItÂs very green and alive.
Still gotta buy a few plants from you come spring time.

I saw pineapple plants growing at Home Depot once, and I was not sure if they were an edible variety, so I didn't buy one. However, it looks as though I should just go buy a nice organic pineapple and try my hand at coaxing the little buggers to sprout. Glad to see someone else did!

Gents,
Beginning my ananas curricula I started some tops, one from a Gold D--e ananas, and another from a "Baby ananas" from South Africa, and both seem to have succeeded (some previous tops were unsuccessfull). Further, I found the brown little seeds, just 7-8 in 2 fruits. Put them in a transparent rigid plastic box (some little holes on top) folded the washed seeds in a white cotton moist "sandwich" in that. Left them on the heating coil (18°C at night, some 30s °C in the day).
In three months, two of the seeds started.
The beginning is a little white protrusion out of the seed. You let them there and two sides will differentiate: one white and sharp (root) and one green (top). Only with a magnifying lens you will see a marvellous complete ananas top. After a week from sprout, I put them in little pots with half sand, half peat.
The grow very slowly, they are bright green little ananas "bonsai"s.
That's it.
Bye folks!

I have pineapple babies from seeds right now. So far two of four seeds have sprouted--it took about 2 months. I have them in jiffy peat cells, inside a little plastic box that a christmas ornament came in. They are sure cute little things. I didn't know that you could grow these or that pineapples even had seeds sometimes. Thanks!

Just wondering how your babies are doing. I just found that pineapple seeds I started about a month ago have sprouted. I started them in a paper towel put in a plastic container and kept moist and warm. Not sure how I should transfer them to a new home. not sure what new home to transfer them to. My Citrus Mix should be ok I guess. well draining.
Guess I will have to start hanging out here in the Bromeliad Forum. To find out how to care for my new babies.
Hope your's are doing well.
Gina *BabyBlue*

Mikevanecek,

When you sprouted the seeds in a jar of water, did you keep them in sunlight or a dark place until they sprouted?

Nicole

I bought a fairly ripe Dole Pineapple a week ago and just got around to cutting it up yesterday. Since I had chosen it with the thought that I would grow the top as I have done in the past I tore the top off of the fruit rather than cutting it. In doing so I managed to avoid harming the little white roots that had already started to form at the base of the top where the leaves join with the fruit. Seeing the roots was a hopeful portent for the future outcome of my rooting project since the tops have not always grown successfully for me. I am wondering if the little 1/8 inch roots had formed because while the pineapple sat on my counter waiting to be cut up I had lightly watered the green top (about a tablespoon or two of water a day)?
When I finally peeled the fruit and began to cut it up I found several small hard shelled brown seeds. When I found them I wasn't sure that they were, in fact, seeds since I'd not heard of pineapples having seeds but after reading all of the postings here I am confident that they are seeds. I just got some magnificent strawberries in a plastic box and I think I will soak the pineapple seeds overnight and then plant them in my homemade cactus mix inside the lidded strawberry container. The plastic box will make a perfect little greenhouse. Can anyone tell me if the seeds need light to germinate or should they be covered with some soil to sprout? I am inclined to place them on top of the soil since a previous poster grew their seeds in water in a jar so the seeds must tolerate light during germination. Does anyone have info about this topic? Also, are Hummingbirds really not allowed in the Hawaiian Islands?
Thanks,
Deborah.

I cut the tops off of store-bought pineapples and just stick them in the ground. I have gotten 2 really tasty pineapples so far from the two plants just in the past couple of years. Yum, and they make a really good drink. Do pineapples generally produce fruit more than once a year?

You can plant the seeds, but using the tops & pups (suckers) are the preferred method of propagation. They are "clones" of the original plant. Because you cannot be sure of the quality of the plant grown with seeds, I personally would not use them.

I've never found seeds in a pineapple, they are caused by the pollination of the pineapple when it's a bud (or cluster of purple/red flowers). This is why hummingbirds are feared by pineapple farmers.

The little white stubs are the root starts....place in a glass, with just enough water to cover the roots, for better developement before planting in soil.

Good luck & enjoy.

sharbear50,

Congratulations, there's nothing better than home-grown pineapple.....sweeter, and less acidic, than store-bought!!!
Sorry, they only fruit once per plant....the pups make better plants than the "tops" so you can start the next gen. of pineapples.

The gift that keeps giving.....ya' gotta love it!

Deborah,

Hummingbirds are not native to Hawaii....they don't exist there. They already have enough problems with "introduced" animal & plant species, they don't need hummingbirds too.

It's the S. American pineapple farmers who fear hummingbirds the most.

These are the best instructions for getting the seeds to germinate that I've found out there. I tried in in the winter ever though there isn't much sun on the eastern shore here, I still have seedlings, about 50% are growing now. I thought I'd like to see which produced the better fruit. The seeds or the crown cutting. The saga continues both the crown cutting and the seeds are doing fine. I will see what happens

DeeRocka

USA

Here is a link that might be useful: grow pineapples from seeds

Avoid all the problems...pop the greens outta the top, let em dry three days, set it in a flower pot, moist, but not wet and wait forever, cause they are slower than galloping snails to make new p-apples, but they will. Patience young jedi.

I have 4 pineapple tops rooted, but I have dozens of the seeds sprouting. Of the tops, I've given one to my parents, one to one of my professors, and kept two for myself :) To sprout the seeds though, it was mostly a trial and error kind of thing. I used two methods: baggie with a moist paper towel inside, and a small, water-filled glass ortega salsa jar. I kept both by a south-facing window, and put more seeds than I bothered to count into each one. The seeds took thoroughly over two months to sprout, probably closer to three, and the seeds in both containers started sprouting within days of each other. The germination rate was at least 75%, and that's just because I dumped the unsprouted seeds into a pot where they're just now starting to sprout.
Now the tops gave me a bit more trouble. At first, all I could find was information saying to pull leaves so that 1-1.5 inches of stalk is exposed, let the top dry for a week, and to dip the exposed stalk in water and wait three weeks. I tried that with my first three tops, and they all rotted. I've seen pictures of successful attempts at this method, but I've got a better one. It will spare you the waste of letting god knows how many leaves shrivel away during drying, not to mention the chance of rotting, and a rotting pineapple top reeks to high heaven. I simply twist the tops off my pineapple, pluck maybe 10-20 of the smaller leaves to expose the primordia and any air roots, and cut off a reasonable amount of any remaining stalk flesh with a good steak knife (best tool for it). The only thing is to make sure you don't cut too close to the roots, as a little bit of remaining flesh isn't as big of a deal as other bloggers suggest. It's fine. The next thing I do is brush a very small amount of Bontone's indole rooting powder onto the roots and stalk wound, and just press the top gently and slightly down into the soil. With this method, I have had considerable root growth in 5 days, and possibly sooner if I had checked more often. I bought a pineapple along with an emergency supply of fruits and veggies to prepare for Hurricane (pfft) Irene the Thursday before it made landfall here in NY, planted the top the same day, and saw the root growth the following Tuesday. Without the rooting powder, the roots seem to take closer to a month to start growing, but there's no chance of rotting if you have a good top and keep the soil slightly moist.

Seedlings after potting up:
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Pineapples are in the back row, with not a single brown spot on them
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I hope this helps anyone looking to grow pineapples from tops or seeds, and I'd appreciate feedback from anyone who gives these methods a try.

I love pineapple plants! At first I was worried because a guy who thought he knows it all told me that they won't fruit because there's something in volcanic soil that makes them fruit...that sounded like a bunch of hooey, so I didn't believe it. Coincidentally a few months after he said that, my oldest pineapple started making a baby fruit for me (probably just to spite him, ha ha ha!!). It took about 3 years from when I planted the crown (I never had patience to sprout the seeds, now I know they can take awhile!). I have a lot of success with growing pineapple plants from crowns, all I do is: 1) when you get the pineapple from the store, cut the top off as soon as you can. 2) Don't strip the leaves off at all, or just enough to fit it in whatever container you want to root it in, and then add water so the very bottom is sitting in it, then that's it. I had horrid luck with using the advice to strip a bunch of leaves off, then let the end callous over- almost all of them died that way! I also found that if your pineapple needs nitrogen, they absolutely LOVE pee. Let's just say that I saved one from certain death via that way. Liquid gold, yep!! :)

The climate you are in has a lot to do with how you propagate them. I just throw the tops out in the garden and leave them to their own devices. But they do like a very acid soil. And they will do better if given weak fertiliser regularly. Full strength fertilisers (liquid) are bad for them. But if you want nice large fruit then best to fertilise.