If you've ever tried to find that perfect coconut to cook "Sunday Dinner" or simply wanted some of the refreshing water from the multi-purpose nut - then you'll know that finding a tasty, good sized coconut is not as easy as it was 20 years ago.
No the coconut is not going extinct, but it is under a vicious and sustained biological attack, by the lethal yellowing disease that destroys the local varieties of coconuts.
We found that the fight to preserve these wonderful nuts is ongoing at central farm.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
The primary objective of the coconut hybridization project at Central Farm in the Cayo District is to supply coconut trees that are resistant to lethal yellowing disease.
Since the late 80's, this disease has almost completely decimated Belize's population of Panama tall and Belizean tall varieties of coconut trees. And while you can't stop the disease from spreading; technicians have done the next best thing: they have bred a resistant strain. It's the product of cross-pollination of the Panama tall and the Malaysian dwarf trees - for a hybrid offspring know as 'Maypan' - that predictably is neither tall nor small.
Hernan August, Coconut Technician
"The emasculate all the Malaysian. It's a process where we take off the male flowers from the Malaysian dwarf and we look for the receptive females left and then we do cross-pollination with the panama tall. We harvest the pollen when its like 25 percent open, we shell the flowers off, put it in the sun to drive, sift it out and then extract the bare pollen and then we wait for the receptive period which takes like 12 to 15 days the most 21 days and then we look for the female when it becomes receptive and then we brush the male onto it."
After this is done, it is only a matter of observation and waiting for the coconut to grow to maturity. When this is complete the technicians that work 9 hours a day for 6 days continue the process of producing seedlings.
Hernan August,
"If it gets cross-pollinated it will stay onto the bunch and grow into a coconut within 12 to 13 months when it becomes mature and if it doesn't pollinate then eventually it falls off the tree. We wait for it to get mature, then we take it to nursery and then we can distinguish which is Maypan or which is Malaysian Dwarf. Then we go back to the nursery and discard all nuts which weren't germinated because then it wouldn't be suitable for sale."
Each of the resultant trees then fetch a price of $8 that August says is subsidized because of the great and always growing demand for coconuts.
Hernan August,
"It's a very valuable crop. We have farmers producing up to 60 acres of coconuts. And then on the local market it sells like for a dollar per nut. It ranges from like 50 cents to 1.50 and there is not enough on the market right now. On Sunday you would see people looking for coconuts to make rice and beans and then also they are people who use it oil. And then there is also the need for tourists who come around who want the want. So there is a very high demand."
But while the demand is great the efforts being carried out here at Central Farm to produce the lethal yellowing resistant 'Maypan' coconut will ensure that the taste of a fresh coconut is not lost to future generations.
Central Farm sells the coconut seedlings to farmers at a subsidized price of $8.