![]() ![]() Unfortunately, these simple maternity tests can’t differentiate hybrids, including V. This means for a few dollars we can increase our confidence to ~90%, because we know that at least the mother of the tested plant was the correct species. Basically, it’s a few hundred DNA nucleotides (high school biology anyone?) and it mostly tells you what species you mother was. We do have a simple method that relies on single gene sequencing. That’s a costly mistake for being comfortable at 70%. planifolia hybrid with yields about a tenth of the standard V. Is 70% good enough? The vanilla flowers pictured at the head of this article look like V. planifolia at ~70% confidence (aka “Don’t bet the farm”). ![]() planifolia, and then sell it to your neighbor (don’t do this in Florida, it’s illegal in at least two ways). You could also go into a natural area, find a vine, call it V. You could get a vine from a neighbor who says it’s V. You could go online and buy a vanilla vine on Ebay. ![]() In order to grow vanilla, you must first obtain vanilla vines. How do we prevent wasting capital and effort on the wrong vanilla species? Well, it depends. It gets even more complicated when hybrids are prevalent. planifolia and, surprise (!), it’s actually not. planifolia, or labeling something as if it was V. How is there so much confusion surrounding vanilla? Well, most people can tell the difference between an orange and a lemon, but how many can correctly differentiate these trees just by the leaves and branches? The risk to the vanilla industry comes when spending money on something with lower quality than V. x tahitensis that seems to be a common term used around the world for anything that is similar to, but not exactly the same as, a standard V. From small-scale growers to big companies, it seems that no one is immune to growing, buying, or investing in the wrong vanilla species. This is the unfortunate news that I’ve had to share with a few collaborators in different countries over the last few months. ![]()
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