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On-Site Proprietary Nurseries

When developing successful specialty coffee and cacao farms, the quality all begins at the nursery. The varietals you select, the seeds you use, the environment they grow in will form the foundation of your farms for the next 15 to 25 years.

To maintain complete quality control over our “seed to bean to finished product” process, we develop and manage our own proprietary nurseries located directly on our farms.

Cacao Nurseries
Coffee Nurseries
Cacao Nursery
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Belize Cacao Sapling Nursery

Location: Toledo, Belize
50,000 Cacao Seedling Capacity
Fine Flavor Cacao Varietals
Planted and Grafted by hand
The final cacao/chocolate quality starts with carefully selecting cacao seeds from “Mother Trees” to use in our own cacao sapling nursery. Mother Trees are chosen based on the Quality and Quantity of cacao they produce. These nurseries then provide healthy and durable cacao saplings for our farms and select farmers in our community. 

During planting season, these saplings are used to plant any new raw land farms that we have acquired and replace older trees in producing farms that have passed their peak production cycles.

Our nursery is also part of our Social Sustainability programs. We established a cacao sapling project to provide healthy saplings to local cacao growers that participate in our program to help increase the yield of their farms with the finest and most in-demand cacao varietals, which, in turn, means more income for themselves and their families.

Panama Cacao Sapling Nursery

Location: Rambala, Panama
75,000 Cacao Seedling Capacity
Fine Flavor Cacao Varietals
Planted and Grafted by hand
In 2021 we began a project to develop our first cacao farm in Panama. All of our coffee farms are located in the cool highlands of Boquete, but cacao requires very different growing conditions. So our new cacao farm is located in an area called Rambala, in Chiriqui Grande, almost at sea level.

The first phase of developing this farm was building the nursery on-site. We formed a strong relationship with a local cacao grower and sourced excellent seeds of the highest quality and specific varietals we needed. During the 3rd quarter of 2021, the team built out the nursery to hold 75,000 saplings that will be planted in the 4th quarter of 2021. This first round will get 62.5 hectares planted, after which we will re-stock the nursery to plant the rest of the farm.

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Coffee Sapling Nurseries

  • Location: Boquete, Panama
  • 100,000 Coffee Seedling Capacity
  • Select Specialty Coffee Varietals
Location: Boquete, Panama
100,000 Coffee Seedling Capacity
Select Specialty Coffee Varietals

Cuatro Camino's Nursery

Our coffee sapling nursery at Cuatro Camino's farm is the largest centralized nursery we have, with a capacity of up to 100,000 saplings. We use bio-degradable pouches, top-quality soil, and hand-selected seeds of varieties such as Geisha, Tyipca, Caturra, Pacamara, Bourbon, and Red and Yellow Catuai. Once the saplings reach an adequate size we use them to plant out our newer farms and replace older trees in our producing farms that have passed their productivity peak. 

We replace these older trees systematically and over about a 3 to 4 year period. When an area of a coffee farm is approaching the end of its productive lifespan, new saplings are planted in the rows in between trees, growing safe in the shade of the older trees until they reach production. At that time the older trees are removed, the new trees are already producing, and the entire section is renovated. This process allows us to maintain the quality of our farms and our coffee without massively affecting the production capacity.
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Satellite Nursery - Jaramillo

As part of our ever-evolving and improving farming practices, we implemented satellite nurseries in our more remote farms, like our Jaramillo cluster of farms. Instead of transporting thousands of saplings from Cuatro Camino's centralized nursery on bumpy roads, now we have developed smaller satellite nurseries in Jaramillo. This helps by cutting down on the cost of transportation and limiting the risk of damage caused to saplings during the transportation process.

Another benefit is that now the saplings grow and develop at the same higher altitude and in the same unique micro-climate as the farms where they will be planted.
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