PINE ISLAND, Fla. – Vanilla Bee Farms started as a COVID project for Sandy Means. Her daughter sent her an article saying that the University of Florida (UFL) was trying to establish vanilla as a cash crop in Southwest Florida. Vanilla is an orchid and it piqued Means’ curiosity. She had been growing orchids for years.

“I thought I’d like to play around with it,” she said. “Vanilla is a vining orchid but what makes it so unique and expensive is that there are no natural pollinators for it here in the United States. Or in most of the world.”

There are natural pollinators in Mexico, where vanilla originates, but most of it is not grown there, Means said. Rather, vanilla must be pollinated by hand with a toothpick. One person can typically pollinate 1,000 plants. So, Means, and her son, Nelson Barnard, who works with her, decided when they got to 1,000 plants, that would be enough.

“Producing vanilla is kind of interesting,” she said. “The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is quite strict about what you can call vanilla extract. They only recognize two varieties of vanilla that you can use for extract. One is vanilla planifolia; the other one is vanilla tahitensis.”

Means and Barnard currently have about 700 plants. However, the plants take three years to produce the yellow orchid flowers. Since they didn’t start with tiny plants, some are already producing flowers.

“We have had flowers for a couple of years now,” she said. “We’re hoping for flowers in large quantities this coming year. We have learned some interesting things. They do much better under red shade cloth.”

The first shade houses (necessary to filter the sun) Means put up were white. Then she attended an international vanilla symposium at the UFL’s Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead, Fla.

“One of presenter said they found that using red shade cloth made a difference,” Means said “I went online and bought some red shade cloth and made a little 8-foot square cube out of it to try it out.”

The cuttings she rooted under the red shade cloth rooted about 30 percent faster than those that were under white shade cloth and the growth was more vigorous.

The plants produce six-15 flowers on a raceme. Typically, one flower blooms a day. The blooms only last for one day and you have to pollinate it in the morning.

“The vanilla bean forms almost immediately,” Means said. “So, you know that the pollination took. You’ll have a bean on within the week. But it takes eight to nine months on the vine for maturity. The bean is about 7- to 9-inches long at maturity. They’re plump and they’re bright green. You know that they’re ready to pick when they start to turn yellow.”

Then you pick and cure the beans. That’s a process that takes another three months. After blanching, the plants must be kept at a warm temperature. UFL recommends a proofing oven like bakeries use to proof their dough.

When it’s dry, Means can package and sell it. Or she makes vanilla extract using 40 proof vodka or bourbon. Most people use vodka, but she said the bourbon gives it an interesting flavor.

Means and Barnard are part of a community of vanilla growers in Southwest Florida whose interest was piqued when UFL began doing vanilla research. Dr. Alan Chambers, courtesy faculty at UFL, took the lead in that research when someone showed him an article in Scientific America about the scarcity of vanilla.

About 80 percent of the world’s natural vanilla comes from smallholder farms in Madagascar, the article said. Many big food companies turned to synthetic vanilla in recent years but with the current consumer demand for “all natural” products, that is changing. However, world production of natural vanilla has been falling.

“The background of vanilla is that it is one of these tropical species that is well known but under researched,” Chambers said. “So, I ordered a couple of plants and ordered a few more plants and a year later I had several hundred different kinds of vanilla all over the place.”

Florida has four native species of vanilla, but not vanilla planifolia, which is the commercial type. Because it was native to the area people got very excited when Chambers would go out to talk about vanilla cultivation. 

“You have to have people sharing tips and tricks, material and shoulders to cry on at times,” he said. “So, we got going; we tackled some of the biggest problems of what do you grow and how do you grow it.”

It was through Chambers sharing that research that Becky Barnard, Means’ daughter, saw the information that started Means on her COVID project. So far, she only produces enough to market at craft fairs and the like. Barnard is working on their website.

“I want to show myself that it can be done,” she said “It is more than a hobby, but I am certainly not making a profit from it yet.”

Means is originally from Fort Wayne, Ind. Her grandfather, Guy Means, graduated from Purdue University’s school of agriculture in 1918.