Any Experience/Recommendations Growing Cashew and Cacao Trees Indoors for the winter?

[L.A.M.]

Would you have any recommendations about how to keep cashew and cacao trees alive indoors over the winter, how to keep them healthy/productive in pots more generally and how to harvest nuts/pods? Are cashew trees self-incompatible? Are cacao trees self-incompatible?

I live in Tennessee and am dead set on opening a plant nursery. Mostly focused on growing suitable native trees, shrubs and wildflowers outdoors, but there are also a few tropical plants like dragonfruit and black mangrove I have interest in growing indoors (black mangroves should be as hard to overwater as succulents are to underwater). Given my nervousness about the impact of tariffs on the price of tropical crops - especially things that aren't already widely grown in a handful of areas of the USA like lemons in the Yuma Desert and Imperial Valley - I've gained an interest in growing cashews and cacao trees partly indoors too if it's worth the effort. I'm also hopeful that if I'm successful enough, maybe someone from McAllen or Brownsville will notice and try to set up commercial orchards there, as that's the only normally frost-free nearly tropical part of the country that isn't arid like the Yuma Desert and Los Angeles nor biologically isolated from other tropical/nearly tropical areas like South Florida is (and of course Hawaii and the overseas territories are); both are native to Mesoamerica. Our country is probably missing out on a lot of potential by not having cashew and cacao orchards in the RGV with supplemental indoor producers in areas where at least a good chunk of the year has suitable temperatures and precipitation.

Thanks for any input!

[PalmsInBaltimore]

the only places I've seen indoor cacao trees are basically greenhouses: the "rainforest" top floor of the National Aquarium in Baltimore and the entrance area of the US Botanic Garden. I doubt either goes much below 70 degrees F or 50% humidity even in the dead of winter. 

[PalmsInBaltimore]

the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden has an interesting take on the growing needs of cacao in South Florida:

https://fairchildgarden.org/visit/making-cacao-growing-a-piece-of-cake/#:~:text=Cacao trees grow and bear,to a few specific conditions.

It would be a cool project to try and grow one indoors in Tennessee. I never realized how available cacao seedlings are until I searched for some just a second ago

[tropicbreeze]

Think you'll have more difficulty with Cashew than with Cacao. Whilst Cashew seems to be quite tough they also need strong sunlight, probably more than they'd get during your winter in a greenhouse. During the summer they like a lot of water. But flowering is usually initiated during the dry season (winter) with low humidity. You only need one tree to have fruit, they're self pollinating. If you do get fruit/nuts, processing them is quite involved and you might want to check that out before getting into it. I like eating Cashew apples but some people find them too acidic.

Cacao can deal with lower levels of light but needs high humidity. The leaves are very thin and will quickly die off if it's too hot and dry. It would cope with growing in a greenhouse far better than Cashew..