How Are Brazil Nuts Grown?
- A Brazil nut tree's flowers must be pollinated in order to produce Brazil nuts. The flowers have a complicated coiled hood that only the female Euglossine bee is capable of pollinating. To attract the female bees, flowering plants (usually orchids) are planted near the Brazil nut trees. These flowering plants attract the smaller male Euglossine bee. These male bees are not capable of pollinating the Brazil nut tree's flowers, but they work to attract the larger female Euglossine bees. The female bees then pollinate the flowers.
- It takes 14 months after pollination for the Brazil nut to mature inside of a Brazil nut tree fruit. Inside the fruit, 8 to 14 triangular seeds (Brazil nuts) are formed, packed together similar to the sections of an orange.
- Brazil nut trees grow primarily in Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru.
- Most imported Brazil nuts actually come from Bolivia. Also, Brazil nuts are not actually nuts, but are seeds.
- Capuchin monkeys have been observed opening Brazil nuts using stones as anvils.
