Farming: This is where the delicious chocolate come from!

Howdy my homesteading family, are you a chocolate enthusiast?, although you are not, but you have known that kind thing, haven’t you?. Anyway, I strongly believe that chocolate is a natural medicine for the broken heart, don’t you believe so?. It does not matter which factory or country that produce the best quality chocolate in the world, but everyone on the planet Earth knows chocolate very well, as long as they live in somewhere with a shop. Do you know where the cacao seeds are produced and planted?. Do you know how does it look?, Have you seen the fresh cocoa fruit or the fresh seed still in the shell?.

If you want to know what is this delicious chocolate made from, then this article is the right one to read.

Alright if you have no idea yet, here I will support you with kind of information. For some of you who are living in Asia and Africa must have known already, because the biggest cocoa producer country that exports the cocoa seeds to America is Ivory Cost (West Africa) as I knew from Google. Indonesia is on the third place on the list, perhaps you have better information.

There are huge efforts, sweats and tears to produce the best quality cocoa seeds and bring to you as a beautiful Christmas or valentine present. There are lots of hard works to do before the seed come to the market. I am sure that some of them came from my hand even only one single seed, because the exporter in Indonesia also sells the cocoa seed up to Europe and America.

I have planted this kind of cocoa since I was in Junior high School. So I knew exactly how to plant kind of trees and process the cocoa seed for the best quality. I will show in you in detail, how the little sprout becomes tree, and produce the best cocoa fruits. I hope this information will be useful.

From the single seed to the tree.

The best seed for planting new tree is the biggest and thickest seed, and it must comes from healthy and best quality fruit. Clean the seed form mucus by washing it with fresh water and then dry it under the shade for a day or two. And then soak the seed in fresh water for one night, it will be better if you mix the water with little honey to stimulate the growing of the sprout. The next day take out the seed from the water and leave it on the layer of wet cotton for 3-4 days. When the sprouts come out from the seed then that is the time to plant it in the poly bag (plastic bags) after filling it with compos or good quality soil. The best way of planting it is by putting the sprout side into the soil ½ of the seed. That is it!, and then just wait for 2-3 months before it is ready to plant on the ground.

The Young Cocoa Tree

*This one is almost ready to be planted on the ground, it needs to wait for another month.

This one is about 2 years and it already has some tiny flowers on the stem

When the saplings are getting about 25 to 30 cm high, then they are ready to be planted directly onto the ground. The saplings need special attentions, it must be cleaned from the weeds and snails, because they are really easy to be eaten by the snail. If the weeds are around the cocoa saplings, it will not grow maximal. The optimum time of production is 2-2.5 years from the time of planting onto the ground.

Pruning

It has been pruned last two week and the fruits are almost ready to be taken

As part of maintaining the tree from getting bushy, it is needed to be pruned regularly. I took the time to prune the bushy trees when I pick the fruit. It has a lot of advantage to prune it while taking the ripe fruits such as I can see more fruits that have been covered by the leaves. But the idea time of pruning is once in a month. Pruning is cutting some bushy branches to allow the sun to shine the ground and it is useful for reducing the ants and other kinds of insect. They way I prune it is by cutting off the young shoots of the branches and keep the mature one to produce. I don’t have many plants but I can enjoy the pruning time once in a while.

The Cocoa Flower

This is the single bloom, and it is about to be pollinated

The flower of the cocoa is grown on the stem and on the branches. The best parts of the tree for flower are stem and mature branches, because it will produce bigger cocoa fruit. It flower is white with tiny red spot in the middle and the stamens. It will take about 4-5 months from the flower become the ripe fruit.

The Cocoa fruits

The cocoa is producing the whole years but the peak season is between June to October every year and then it is turning into the normal season. The producing rate in the normal season can be half of the peak season. There are two kinds cocoa trees I have had base on the color of the fruit, one is green and the other one is reddish brown. The Ripe Cocoa fruits that are ready to be cropped is seen from the color. The green one will turn into yellow or orange when it ripe enough to be taken from the trees, and the other one will turn into bright brown and orange.

This one is the green variety

Harvesting

In the normal season the cocoa fruit can be cropped 2 times in a month which is able to produce 0.3 kg (dry seeds) each trees in average, but during the peak season the fruits can be picked 3-4 time in a month and the quantity of the harvest can reach up to 0.8 to 1 kg dry seeds per tree per harvest. The way I took the fruit from the tree is using the small sickle knife that tie up at the edge of wooden stick and the low trunk can be taken using a knife.

Processing

After collecting the fruit from the trees, I will wait for 2-3 days while I can probably get some more from the trees. Because the fruits are not ready to be taken in the same time, some of them need a few more days to be ready. I will take the fruit as long as the seed is already hard and the color is getting purple even the skin is still light green or turning yellowish. The next step is to open the shell and take the seeds out and collect it in the sack. It is important to tie up the sack and press it with something heavy such as rock or log wood. It can be the fermentation stage as well. But the most important purpose it to reduce the water from the seeds (the sticky mucus around the seeds). The mucus is able to protect the seed from drying fast or sometimes it can be grown if it gets wet during the rainy season. Drying the seeds in the sack is the first stage of drying and it can take about 2-3 days.

Sun drying of the seed

![DSC_0083.jpg
()
This is the way we dry up the cocoa seeds on the tarpaulin

This is how the seed looks like after 2 days direct sun drying

This is the seed after 4 days drying, and it is almost ready, the white spot is fungus, it is because the interrupted process of sun dry due to the rainy days. If there is rain for 7 days, most probably all the seed are getting rotten and cannot be sold anymore

The final stage of drying is the sun dry method. The seed that have been dried up in the sack for couple of days now can be dried directly under the sun. This is sometimes can be so problematic, the peak season of harvesting is also comes along with the rainy months or mostly rainy during the peak season. Subsequently, it will influence the quality of the dry seeds and eventually the price of the seed will also be decreased. The way of drying it is by spreading the seeds on the large mattress or tarpaulin, it is normal if you come to the country side or the cocoa plantation area, you will see the farmer drying up the cocoa seeds on the roadside especially in the village. It is depended on the temperature of the day to dry it up, but normally it will take about 5 days to dry it until the seeds remain with 12% of water (the seed possess 12% of the water if it is tested by Digital Cocoa Moisture Meter). I don’t have that kind of tools, so I use the traditional method of measuring the water rate. I only need to crush the seed and see the inner flesh, when it gets dark brown that mean it is ready to sell with good price. Any way the current price of the dry cocoa seeds is IDR 20,000/Kg (Approx $ 1,3 USD).

This is how the flesh inside the seed looks like, and at least it needs one more day to dry

This one is ready to be sold with maximum price. The flesh is getting dark brown.

The bugs

It is not that smooth to have good cocoa even we have tried our best to keep and maintain from early stage. Monkeys, Squirrels, and Rats are always there to take some fruits. The most annoying one is monkeys. They are able to take 100 to 150 fruits just in 2 hours with only 10 of them in the herd. They are definitely smart enough to wait when no one in the farm to have a party.

I collected these empty shell from the ground, these cocoa were taken by monkeys. if they are bitten by the squirrel it must be still on the stem, but monkey took it off from the tree and eaten on the ground while they were hiding in the bushes

This kind of thing is caused by bacteria or viruses

I am looking for the most effective way to rid this kind of disease, it is obviously cause by bacteria or something alike

The other things are insects and bacteria, it causes too much as well. But the bacteria will destroy the fruit at any stage of age starting from the flower until it is getting ripe enough. Some fruits with bacteria attack can be seen from the color. The color will turn into black or yellow before it dry up on the trunk. Those kinds of thing will reduce the harvesting rate significantly. That is the tears for us as the farmer, I will use the sling shoot or air gun rifle to chase out the monkeys and squirrels, and prune the trees regularly to avoid the bacteria. When I prone it at least the sun will dry the moisture land and eventually will help to reduce the bacteria on the ground (perhaps), because I try to avoid using chemical spray since I plant some other veggies beneath the cocoa trees and the most important thing is to protect the soil from getting poisoned to ensure the sustainability of the earth, with the risk of low harvesting rate.

That is the cycle of the seed before it goes to the market. And to the factory and then it is transformed into delicious chocolate bar or powder and then the candies, cakes, or milk. It has been throughout the whole process of the farmer like me. With passions, tears and hard works we keep push forward for the best result of living with nature.

Thank you for your time of support and reading this post, I wish the best day for all of you.

With my best regard

@el-nailul

Hope for the best and prepare for the worst

Please joint us on discord channel at https://discord.gg/DJQkJBY

Mari bergabung dengan kami di discord channel : https://discord.gg/78DZ3YQ