Flowering coconut palms

[Keon Research]

I am writing a proposal for a research project currently that has to do with coconut flowers and am trying to see if it is feasible to get a flowering coconut palm in California.  I know they don't normally grow here, but was thinking if I could get a mature palm and put it in a greenhouse with simulated tropical environment, it might work?  Several road blocks have led me to this forum, so I'm hoping you can help:

1.) Are there any suppliers that might have mature dwarf coconut palms either in California, or are able to ship to California.  I know this is not trivial, and am working out with CDFA to figure out what needs to be done, but if there is a supplier already doing this, that would be a big step forward.

2.) Is it feasible to grow palms in a simulated tropical environment, and keep them flowering?  Does anyone have experience doing this, or can direct me to any resources?

Many thanks!!!

[ZPalms]

9 hours ago, Keon Research said:

I am writing a proposal for a research project currently that has to do with coconut flowers and am trying to see if it is feasible to get a flowering coconut palm in California.  I know they don't normally grow here, but was thinking if I could get a mature palm and put it in a greenhouse with simulated tropical environment, it might work?  Several road blocks have led me to this forum, so I'm hoping you can help:

1.) Are there any suppliers that might have mature dwarf coconut palms either in California, or are able to ship to California.  I know this is not trivial, and am working out with CDFA to figure out what needs to be done, but if there is a supplier already doing this, that would be a big step forward.

2.) Is it feasible to grow palms in a simulated tropical environment, and keep them flowering?  Does anyone have experience doing this, or can direct me to any resources?

Many thanks!!!

It might get expensive, If you can keep a coconut in a greenhouse with tropical temperatures then your more than guaranteed to probably get one to flower.

If you got the funds anything possible.

Edited June 13, 2023 by ZPalms

[Keon Research]

12 hours ago, ZPalms said:

It might get expensive, If you can keep a coconut in a greenhouse with tropical temperatures then your more than guaranteed to probably get one to flower.

If you got the funds anything possible.

OK, thanks.  So the outstanding question is how to find a mature coconut palm in California.  Does anyone know of suppliers who ship into the state (since there seems to be no nurseries that actually have any here already, which is understandable).

[PalmatierMeg]

Your best chance to get a mature flowering coconut is to have one shipped to you from HI or FL. Or take a road trip in a panel truck to FL and bring some back with you. You should know:

1. To my knowledge no one in CA has grown a coconut palm to flowering/fruiting. This palm cannot survive there at all except perhaps in a botanical garden conservatory or in a very rare microclimate and with protection. Even if someone manages to get one to survive temporarily the palm will never flower or fruit. That is because coconut palms require very high heat (85F +) and full sun and sweltering nights. Not only freezing temps but also extended cool weather will surely kill them. CA is rightly praised for its cool, crisp nights in the 40s/50s but coconuts despise chilly nights for months on end and cannot photosynthesize at daytime temps below 50F. CA winters are cold/chilly and rainy (vs dry in FL). Cold rain is lethal to tropical palms.

2. For you to set up an environment favorable to a coconut you will have to invest vast amounts of money into a greenhouse/conservatory, utilities to provide the high heat, light and humidity this palm demands.

3. If you are able to bankroll an environmental setup catered to a coconut palm you have no assurance that it will give you fruit. Without such a setup you have virtually no hope it will do so. Even in the palm paradise of HI, coconut palms grown above 1000 ft elevation do not produce fruit as temperatures are not high enough.

4. Understand that from flowers to ripe, viable fruit takes two years here in FL. Who knows how long that might take in CA but I suspect that fruit doesn’t make it past the first year, i.e., over the winter. Hence the need for a tropical conservatory.

5. Coconuts are inefficient reproducers. They produce 100s of flowers that morph into tiny fruits that mostly abort. The fruit that reach full size often turn out to be non-viable. Before I lost my dwarf red spicata mother palm to Hurricane Irma in 2017 her final crop of nuts produced just two (2) germinations. 

6. I have one solitary dwarf red spicata offspring from the 2016 crop and dwarf red spicata twins from 2015. They are 7 and 8 years old, respectively. None of them has yet to trunk or flower here in SW FL. That would be an interminable amount of time if I were trying to grow them in a conservatory anywhere “up north”.

So, is it all worth it? Only you can say. We don’t eat fresh coconuts, water or milk. We give them to our Jamaican neighbor up the street.

[Funkthulhu]

Are there any glass menageries in California that already have a flowering coconut in them?  

You may be better served partnering with one of those locations rather than investing in trying on your own.

[mnorell]

On 6/13/2023 at 12:03 PM, PalmatierMeg said:

Your best chance to get a mature flowering coconut is to have one shipped to you from HI or FL. Or take a road trip in a panel truck to FL and bring some back with you. You should know:

1. To my knowledge no one in CA has grown a coconut palm to flowering/fruiting. This palm cannot survive there at all except perhaps in a botanical garden conservatory or in a very rare microclimate and with protection. Even if someone manages to get one to survive temporarily the palm will never flower or fruit. That is because coconut palms require very high heat (85F +) and full sun and sweltering nights. Not only freezing temps but also extended cool weather will surely kill them. CA is rightly praised for its cool, crisp nights in the 40s/50s but coconuts despise chilly nights for months on end and cannot photosynthesize at daytime temps below 50F. CA winters are cold/chilly and rainy (vs dry in FL). Cold rain is lethal to tropical palms.

2. For you to set up an environment favorable to a coconut you will have to invest vast amounts of money into a greenhouse/conservatory, utilities to provide the high heat, light and humidity this palm demands.

3. If you are able to bankroll an environmental setup catered to a coconut palm you have no assurance that it will give you fruit. Without such a setup you have virtually no hope it will do so. Even in the palm paradise of HI, coconut palms grown above 1000 ft elevation do not produce fruit as temperatures are not high enough.

4. Understand that from flowers to ripe, viable fruit takes two years here in FL. Who knows how long that might take in CA but I suspect that fruit doesn’t make it past the first year, i.e., over the winter. Hence the need for a tropical conservatory.

5. Coconuts are inefficient reproducers. They produce 100s of flowers that morph into tiny fruits that mostly abort. The fruit that reach full size often turn out to be non-viable. Before I lost my dwarf red spicata mother palm to Hurricane Irma in 2017 her final crop of nuts produced just two (2) germinations. 

6. I have one solitary dwarf red spicata offspring from the 2016 crop and dwarf red spicata twins from 2015. They are 7 and 8 years old, respectively. None of them has yet to trunk or flower here in SW FL. That would be an interminable amount of time if I were trying to grow them in a conservatory anywhere “up north”.

So, is it all worth it? Only you can say. We don’t eat fresh coconuts, water or milk. We give them to our Jamaican neighbor up the street.

Meg--

It's a fallacy that coconuts have not flowered or fruited in California. The late Palm Desert Cocos flowered and fruited, and Danny Lopez documented it here on PalmTalk with photos of some small coconuts in the infructescence. I'm not sure if the La Quinta coconut has flowered, I've never noticed anything during my occasional drive-bys but that tree is kept rather trimmed so inflorescences may have been removed by gardeners. Pretty certain the cool-belt Cocos specimens (the late Newport Beach and the current Del Mar coconut) have not flowered/fruited; and it looks like the Santa Ana, (late) Corona and newly discovered Compton Cocos are/were too immature to flower.  It would be awfully nice if these nice coconuts in SoCal don't keep getting chopped down by their ignorant owners.

And a Fiji Dwarf could certainly be grown under glass in California with probably flowering/fruiting; the specimen I grew at our house on Big Pine Key was fruiting last year when we sold the house (after 12 years in the ground), and it had I think only a foot of trunk on it, with the characteristically tight crown of that variety making it a compact package.

And with that said...I think it would be a MUCH easier task to go spend some time in Florida or Hawai'i and do the research project there, rather than try to put something like this together at great cost, and then wait years for the result, when an airplane or a road-trip can take anyone face-to-face with thousands of coconut trees in flower or fruit...

[SeanK]

Perhaps someone knows the time to flower from seedling (2-ft) in years. Cocos also likes warm soil.

[PalmatierMeg]

On 6/15/2023 at 6:58 PM, mnorell said:

Meg--

It's a fallacy that coconuts have not flowered or fruited in California. The late Palm Desert Cocos flowered and fruited, and Danny Lopez documented it here on PalmTalk with photos of some small coconuts in the infructescence. I'm not sure if the La Quinta coconut has flowered, I've never noticed anything during my occasional drive-bys but that tree is kept rather trimmed so inflorescences may have been removed by gardeners. Pretty certain the cool-belt Cocos specimens (the late Newport Beach and the current Del Mar coconut) have not flowered/fruited; and it looks like the Santa Ana, (late) Corona and newly discovered Compton Cocos are/were too immature to flower.  It would be awfully nice if these nice coconuts in SoCal don't keep getting chopped down by their ignorant owners.

And a Fiji Dwarf could certainly be grown under glass in California with probably flowering/fruiting; the specimen I grew at our house on Big Pine Key was fruiting last year when we sold the house (after 12 years in the ground), and it had I think only a foot of trunk on it, with the characteristically tight crown of that variety making it a compact package.

And with that said...I think it would be a MUCH easier task to go spend some time in Florida or Hawai'i and do the research project there, rather than try to put something like this together at great cost, and then wait years for the result, when an airplane or a road-trip can take anyone face-to-face with thousands of coconut trees in flower or fruit...

I learn so much here. Thanks