Today I planted a Myrciaria strigipes, a nice looking tall shrub with weeping leaves in the same family as jaboticaba. This rare plant is from Joe and if I remember correctly he said that the fruit tastes sweet and tart like a lilikoi. Its endemic to Bahia in Brazil and it’s called cambuca de praia (beach cambuca).
In Southern Bahia there is a 200 year old cacao agroforestry system called Cabruca where they select about 30 adult native trees per acre, remove the rest and plant a little less than 300 cacao trees. Although Cabruca yields less cacao harvested per acre, you have the benefits of the forest cycling it’s nutrients, providing habitat for wildlife, producing other fruits, plant medicines, timber, firewood, protection against soil erosion, requires less pesticides, and it’s a pleasantly shaded work environment requiring less weeding/herbicides. The biggest benefit of the Cabruca cacao agroforest is the biodiversity which can consist of over 200 different tree species coexisting in the system.
Originally posted on 2021-06-14, part of the daily planting journal behind Ha’a Chocolate’s food forest on Hawai’i Island.