Ever had a delicious Pineapple that made you wish you could eat it again? Well, you can relish it again by regrowing it at your home.
If you want to learn how, there are not just one or two or three but five amazing ways to regrow a pineapple plant, either indoors or outdoors. You don’t need to become a master gardener 😁 to do this. To begin, what you need is a few minutes to read this post from top to bottom and that’s it.
1. Grow the Crown in Water
The number one option is to grow the top in water; you can then transfer it to soil or let it be in water–forever. If you decide to keep it in just water, do note that it won’t be fruiting!
To start, twist and take a leafy crown off of a pineapple and get rid of the excess flesh without damaging it; you can use a knife carefully for scratching and some running water.
Once it is clean, root the crown in water for a few days so that it can form the roots properly and then transplant it into the soil. While you submerge it, make sure not to sink the leaves but only the bottom. Here’s a video tutorial to help you understand even more 😃.
2. Regrow Pineapple from its Slips
Slips grow around the base of the pineapple fruits but are removed by growers before selling them in the market as they are super easy to propagate, and probably the best way for them to grow new pineapple crops.
If you’re lucky, you’ll find one such fruit in the store with slips and they look like agave pups. If you don’t, don’t worry, buy them from a nearby plant shop or online, or wait. You’ll have them when your homegrown pineapple plant produces fruit, if you’ll follow the third method.
If you’ve not jumped to the method 3 😄, still, let’s read more! All you need to do is remove a slip (or call it a pup, as described in this useful Florida University article) from the bottom of a pineapple fruit and then plant it in a separate pot. One each for one slip, any standard 12 inches pot (5 gallon soil volume) is sufficient.
When planting, cover its base 1-2 inches with the soil and let it grow. This planting depth is ideal and allows the pup to develop new roots while the leaves remain exposed to enjoy the light and good air circulation.
3. Planting the Top in Soil
If you don’t want to grow your pineapple crown in water, follow the same process of cleaning a bit and then directly root its top in soil. Either plant in the desired container or propagate 2-3 crown together in one pot and transplant later.
Fill that with rich and well-draining potting soil or try a succulent mix but add half a handful of compost or well-rotted manure to enrich the medium.
The best position for your pineapple plant in home is somewhere where it can receive at least 4-5 hours of direct sunlight or more the better. If you’ll keep it in indirect light, fruit production will be reduced but the plant will grow. For more information, follow our detailed guide here.
4. Growing Pineapples from Suckers
Apart from this, pineapples are also grown from suckers and they appear between the leaves of the existing pineapple plant, so you can try that as well and both the slips and suckers are faster way to propagate this fragrant tropical fruit 😁.
If you want to understand what is a pineapple sucker and how to identify, remove and propagate it–don’t miss watching this short yet informative Youtube video here! The rest of the planting process is the same as method two (slips) that you read above.
5. Try Ratoon Propagation
Last but not the least, you can try ratoon propagation, which comes after you harvest your first pineapple fruit. You let the plant growing and wait for another shoot to appear from the main stem.
It may or may not come but if you want a 100% success, here’s a secret, let one of the suckers growing and after you remove the fruit, it will develop to provide you the second harvest 🤩
Try this Trick to Encourage Flowering
After all the ways to grow, it’s time harvest and who doesn’t want to harvest quickly! You can try this plastic bag hack when regrowing a pineapple to encourage flowering or expedite the fruit production; it may or may not work but worth a try.
Simply place the top of your pineapple plant with an apple or banana or tomato in a plastic bag for a few days; any of these fruits will release ethylene gas, which will increase in the plastic bag and the concentration of it will either induce flowering or speed up the fruiting process (if there is a fruit already).
Do this for one or two weeks but only when your plant is between the age 1 to 2 years old, or in simple words, it is more than one year old. And yes, look out for signs of stress, if it doesn’t like it, remove the cover and let it breath 😄!
So, which one of these five methods you’re going to try? And what you think of this hack above? Write in comments section and if you like the post, show your love by sharing it!
