Growing Black Pepper

June 4th:

What I already knew...
Black pepper is grown on vines and are typically sent up Albesia trees (a trash tree).  The pepper pods are dark green when harvested and turns brown when dried.  Take the outer black peel off and you get white pepper.


Something new...

Rows of Black Pepper vines
growing on trash trees
(stock photo from web)

The albesia trees that the pepper vine is sent up is a trash tree.  This grows fast and needs to be kept in check.  The height needs to be kept in check because if the tree is too tall, the pepper is too hard to harvest.  The canopy has to be kept in check so that the pepper plants get enough shade, and also so that the tree doesn't suck in all the nutrients, leaving nothing for the pepper plant.

Professional tree trimmers will hire themselves out - paid by the acre - to crop these trash trees in order to make the pepper plants grow better.  They will also strip the leaves off the trash trees and drop them at the base of the pepper plant to conserve moisture and to act as compost.  The branches are then put through the chipper and also used for mulch.

Close up of pepper corn
(Stock Photo)

I saw these tree trimmers in action today at Nanda's pepper grove, trimming the trash trees with a hooked knife tied to a long bamboo stick.  This is what prompted me to write this story.