How to Propagate a Wild Coffee Plant From Seed
Wild coffee plants grow in a diverse locations and soil types, from moist to semi-arid. Wild coffee plants can also grow in indoor planters. With water, sunshine and regular pruning, you can look forward to harvesting coffee cherries from the tree. Note that coffee trees bud flowers and cherries after two or three years, so you have to be patient for that first backyard cup of fresh coffee from your own crop. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Pick ripe cherries from a wild, blooming coffee tree. Pluck 4 or 5 cherries -- or more -- from the tree. If you do not have access to a blooming coffee tree, order green coffee seeds (coffee beans) from a coffee supply store.
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Wash the coffee cherries with water. Rub the cherry in your hands to rinse off the pulp, the fruit part of the cherry surrounding the seed. This is called "pulping" the cherry.
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Rinse the coffee beans with fresh water. Place the coffee bean, or beans, in a shallow water basin, such as a ceramic potting plate. Toss away any beans that float -- they are not healthy enough to plant.
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Dry the coffee beans on a mesh screen. Place the beans on a screen, like a window screen, in dry air in a place with partial sunshine.
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Test the dryness level. Bite or cut into one of the beans. Check that it is dry on the outside, but soft and slightly wet on the inside, like a freshly cut twig.
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Plant the seeds. Dig a hole about 1/2-inch deep in loam soil with a high humus content. Lay the seed, flat side down, inside the hole. Cover the seed with soil, but do not pack the soil -- it needs to breathe.
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Water the seeds every day. Saturate the soil. Place your fingers in the soil to make sure it is always moist, but not wet.
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Place the tree in the sun. If you live in a cool climate, and are planting the seeds indoors, move the coffee plant inside when temperatures dip below 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Coffee plants also do well growing under grow lamps.
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Reduce watering at the beginning of winter. For the first two to three months of a cold winter season, water less regularly, so that you water the plant once every two weeks. When spring starts, water the plant more frequently, once or twice per week. The change in watering rituals can stimulate quicker growth.
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Tips & Warnings
Note that ready-to-plant coffee beans are dry and crisp on the outside and moist on the inside.
When drying coffee beans, dry them to a 20 percent moisture content level.
For added moisture when planting, add a half-inch of grass clippings on top of the bean.
References
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Goodshoot/Getty Images
