Monday, January 27, 2020

Vanilla Bean Orchid by Vicky Spelman

Creative Commons License


Do you do a lot of baking with vanilla?  Ever wonder why it is so expensive?

The cultivation of vanilla is extremely labor-intensive.

Vanilla is a genus of orchids that contains roughly 110 species that span the tropical regions of the globe. They are vining orchids, climbing trunks of trees in an attempt to make their bid for the canopy. Some Vanilla orchids have lost their leaves entirely, relying solely on their green, photosynthetic stems and roots. The species that gives us the highly coveted vanilla flavor is Vanilla planifolia from Central America & Mexico.


Vanilla planifolia plants themselves don't even start producing vanilla beans until after 3 years, & when they do produce flowers they are very short-lived. They open up as the sun begins to rise and are mostly closed by the afternoon. Vanilla is not self-fertile so if the flower has not been fertilized by afternoon, it will simply wither and fall off. In the wild, Vanilla relies on stingless bees for pollination. In most cases, Vanilla growers do not rely on the bees, because, if they are present, fertilization rates are often extremely low. If the bees are not present, the plants will not reproduce on their own. Because of this, Vanilla growers must hand-pollinate all the flowers individually.

Wikipedia
It's a labor-intensive process that must be done at just the right time if it is to work. This is harder than it sounds considering the flowers are opening every day at different times. It takes 9 months for the seed pods to mature enough to harvest & every pod matures at a different rate requiring workers to harvest daily. Following the harvest, the seed pod curing process takes another 3 months.

There is no rushing the production of pure vanilla extract, which is why this liquid spice remains so expensive.

Sources: In Defense of Plants, 09/14/15 via Extension Master Gardener 12/13/19.  Vanilla
https://tinyurl.com/vanilla-bean-info-1 and Vegetable gardener contributor Chris McLaughlin.  Vanilla2