It is always interesting to see what guests focus on when they visit Finca Chocolat. The trees are impressive to see firsthand, cacao being fermented always brings a lot of questions, most like to taste the beans in the drying house, the wildlife catches everyone’s eye but few see all of the work that is done on a day-to-day basis.
Our team puts enormous effort into ensuring that our trees get the best start possible and then cares for them weekly for years before they bear their first fruit. We pay a lot of attention to soil preparation for the nursery as well as when we plant the young saplings in the fields. Getting the trees through their first 18 months of life typically means we will have a healthy and strong tree that will produce well long into the future.
To ensure we meet that 18-month mark we provide our saplings with the best possible soil early in their lives and because of this have a 93% success rate with our trees. Here you see our crew offloading literally trailer loads of sawdust from one of the local sawmills. We use this sawdust to augment our potting soil in the nursery, along with biochar, and then again when we plant the trees in the fields.
Using this sawdust in this way also helps to reduce air pollution as most sawmills in Belize will simply burn their piles of sawdust & offcuts unless someone makes the effort to remove it for them.
