What does a brazil-nut seedling look like?

Question

I would like to hear a description, such as shape and size of leaves, and how they appear on the stem. Also any information regarding proper propogation of the Brazil nut (bertholletia excelsa) along with general environmental conditions required for early growth, (temp., light, soil etc.) would be appreciated.

Answer 1

the Brazil nut industry in many Amazonian forests continues "business as usual," there will not be enough younger trees to replace the old trees as they die, according to a new study.


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If you crack open the hard, dark brown shell of a Brazil nut, you’ll find an almost-white, meaty treat wrapped in a thin brown cover. The scientists say that important changes need to be made to the way Brazil nuts are collected in order to maintain a healthy population of nut-producing trees.

If you crack open the hard, dark brown shell of a Brazil nut, you'll find an almost-white, meaty treat wrapped in a thin brown cover. Without the shell, Brazil nuts are about the size of a really fat caterpillar.

Brazil nuts are the only internationally-traded seed crop collected entirely from the wild.


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A Brazil nut (Bertholletia excelsa) seedling. Brazil nut trees can grow about 160 feet tall (about 50 meters) and their trunks are some of the fattest in the forest. The nuts develop within hard fruits about the size and shape of a large grapefruit.


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Brazil nut trees ) can grow about 160 feet tall (about 50 meters) and their trunks are some of the fattest in the forest. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Once the fruits fall to the ground, large rodents known as agoutis compete with humans for the harvest.

After performing a census of Brazil nut trees from 23 forest sites in the Amazon, Carlos Peres from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and scientists from South America, Europe and the United States report that young Brazil nut trees have not adequately replaced increasingly older trees in areas of intense nut collection.

To help increase the number of Brazil nut tree youngsters, the authors suggest planting seeds and seedlings, limiting harvests and establishing harvest rotation programs that can provide stands with temporary vacations from fruit collection


and from Wikipedia


The Brazil Nut is a South American tree Bertholletia excelsa in the family Lecythidaceae. It is the only species in the genus Bertholletia. It is native to the Guianas, Venezuela, Brazil, eastern Colombia, eastern Peru and eastern Bolivia. It occurs as scattered trees in large forests on the banks of the Amazon, Rio Negro, and the Orinoco. The genus is named after the French chemist Claude Louis Berthollet. It is a large tree, reaching 30–45 m tall and 1–2 m trunk diameter, among the largest of trees in the Amazon Rainforests. It may live for 500 years or more. The stem is straight and commonly unbranched for well over half the tree's height, with a large emergent crown of long branches above the surrounding canopy of other trees. The bark is grayish and smooth.

The leaves are dry-season deciduous, alternate, simple, entire or crenate, oblong, 20–35 cm long and 10–15 cm broad. The flowers are small, greenish-white, in panicles 5–10 cm long; each flower has a two-parted, deciduous calyx, six unequal cream-colored petals, and numerous stamens united into a broad, hood-shaped mass.

Brazil nuts only produce fruit in virgin forests, as forests that are not virgin usually lack an orchid that is indirectly responsible for the pollination of the flowers. The orchids produce a scent that attracts small male long-tongued orchid bees (Euglossa spp), as the male bees need that scent to attract females. Without the orchid, the bees cannot mate, and therefore the lack of bees means the fruit do not get pollinated. The Brazil Nut tree's yellow flowers can only be pollinated by an insect strong enough to lift the coiled hood on the flower and with tongues long enough to negotiate the complex coiled flower. The large female long-tongued orchid bee pollinates the Brazil Nut tree. If both the orchids and the bees are present, the fruit takes 14 months to mature after pollination of the flowers, and is a large capsule 10–15 cm diameter resembling a coconut endocarp in size and weighing up to 2 kg. It has a hard, woody shell 8–12 mm thick, and inside contains 8–24 triangular seeds 4–5 cm long (Brazil nuts) packed like the segments of an orange; it is not a true nut in the botanical sense. The capsule contains a small hole at one end, which enables large rodents like the Agouti to gnaw open the capsule. They then eat some of the nuts inside while burying others for later use; some of these are able to germinate to produce new Brazil Nut trees. Most of the seeds are "planted" by the Agoutis in shady places, and the young saplings may have to wait years, in a state of dormancy, for a tree to fall and sunlight to reach it. It is not until then that it starts growing again. Capuchin monkeys have been reported to open Brazil nuts using a stone as an anvil.

Answer 2

the three-sided, difficult, darkish-shelled Brazil nut grows in clusters on the tip of thick branches interior coconut-like pods called cocos (Portuguese). The nut is grown interior the Amazon rain forests of Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. The Brazil nut tree is extensive, accomplishing a height of a hundred to one hundred fifty ft or greater. it may additionally stay an prolonged existence of 500 to 800 years. (The trees advance very slowly, taking as long as 10 to 30 years formerly generating nuts.) They require a particular species of bee to pollinate the plant life (which produce the fruit) and a small floor mammal called the agouti to break open the pods and unfold the seeds. For those reasons, the Amazon is the sole place those nuts have been grown efficiently. whilst the fruit is ripe, it falls from the tree, from January to June, in many circumstances with a noisy crashing sound. interior each and each fruit pod are 12 to twenty-5 Brazil nuts, each and each interior its very own individual shell. Older Brazil nut trees can produce approximately 3 hundred or greater of those fruit pods each and each year. The pods are accumulated whilst they have fallen from the trees and then will desire to be chopped open as a fashion to acquire the nuts. Brazil nuts style wealthy and creamy, and their meat is comparable in texture to coconut. those nuts may well be eaten uncooked, roasted and salted.

Answer 3

I don't know, but would you e-mail with results? And whether you can use the nuts from the holiday nut packages to grow one since these are the seeds? I love those nuts.