Cocos nucifera NUT above 1000ft?

[Mr. Coconut Palm]

I have a friend who moved to Guadalajara, Mexico last year, and he just emailed me the other day telling me of a 50ft. tall coconut palm in Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico that has 8" x 5" coconuts on it, and it is at 5,000 ft. elevation! Wow, that is the highest growing coconut palm I have ever heard of, and certainly the highest fruiting palm. I have asked him to send me some photos, which I will try to post here.

John

Flour Bluff, Corpus Christ, TX (borderline Zone 10A)

P.S. We have a few coconut palms around here, the largest I know of is about 20 ft. tall on the south side of a two story house that backs up to Corpus Christi Bay in a perfect microclimate with the driveway in front of the palm.

[Niu]

Mr. Coconut Palm,

I would love to see photos of that Cocos nucifera growing at 5000 ft.! I believe you about the size of the coconuts. While on the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico I was drinking out of coconuts that must have been about a foot in diameter--I'm not exaggerating! It would take me so long to drink one. I was in heaven! If only I could get my hands on some of those drupes now...

[Jeff in St Pete]

Didn't we see coconuts growing, but probably not fruiting, in San Jose, Costa Rica during the Biennial? San Jose is 1160 meters ASL.

Jerry, there are actually a lot of fruiting coconuts around San Jose and the Central Valley. I've seen plenty of them loaded with fruit. They even fruit here on the mountainside in Escazu at around 4,000 ft (1219 meters) although they don't produce as much at this altitude. In Costa Rica they seem to struggle with fruit production above 4,000 ft.

[Hammer]

Niu, we use coconut oil almost exclusively and we use coconut milk in all our cooking. Young coconuts are quite yummy as the meat is soft and juicy.

Going with dwarf cultivars might be your best bet for getting the best fruit because the crowns would be warmer closer to the ground. But you would need to use white gravel of sorts to get the heat to reflect back into the coconuts. And you would have to resist the temptation to fill in between the coconuts with smaller species as they would take away air and heat from your coconuts.

White gravel? That seems counter intuative. I would think black gravel would create a much greater amount of infrared waves to heat the area.

[Leslie_in_Dhading]

Hi Niu!

It has been a few years now and so I'm curious if your coconuts ever worked out? I'm in Nepal and will be at about 900m. We have a subtropical climate, but I'm searching all the blogs for all the factors that will help me make my decision. I think I'm going to try it as my temperature range should be OK although I'm worried winters might be a little bit cold. I'm so glad to hear that people are seeing coconuts as high as 1500m in Hawaii, because it means that microclimates of that altitude could have a chance if the conditions happen to work out. I hope I can find out more information in general from you, but also I'm really curious to see if you tried the experiment of planting the coconuts and if it worked out!

Cheers!

Leslie