Hi JesseWelcome to the group. I would be interested to hear any comments you have on your experience of restoring your plantation. There are a lot of abandoned trees in the South Pacific, so rehabilitation is an interesting topic for us and growers we are involved with.Also, do you do your own fermentation and drying?

Hi Jesse,I think there will be no shortage of folks hoping to buy good-quality beans, nuts and fruit from you! Talk to Clay, see if he will market your beans.Good luck,Duffy

Hi new friends,This is interesting, a forum for chocolate fans. While chocolate is my favorite candy, my main interest is getting my maybe 800 or so trees which I planted in 1984 back into shape after being abandoned for some 15 years. I'm on the south Pacific side of Costa Rica, 400 meters altitude, 200 inches of rain with a jan-march dry season. I won't bore you here with the details, but feel free to ask anything you want about growing.As we know, great chocolates are often combined with great nuts, and sometimes dried fruits. I have a great collection of tropical fruits and nuts, some of which would be great in chocolate, like dried rambutan or langsat, paradise cream (monkey pot) nuts, pili nuts, etc. I do not have enough land to be a major producer of these but am looking for crops that my neighbors could plant, a market for those crops, or to help any cacao farmers in other areas diversify into complementary crops, or exchange rare fruits native to their areas.
updated by @jesse-blenn: 04/17/15 19:00:03