Major Types of Coconut You Should Know

The fruit of Cocos nucifera aka palm tree is known as ‘Coconut’.

Coconut fruit is widely used across the globe for its nutrient-rich meat, water, milk, and oil.

Preferentially coconut was being used for culinary purposes but recently they are used for a variety of reasons including religious sacrament, to extract oil, milk, coconut flour and for its health benefits.

Coconut trees usually grow in the tropical region but due to increased demand and abundance of benefits, they are being planted across the globe.

But the types of coconut found across the globe vary from each other.

Coconut meat is scraped using a coconut scraper and used to extract milk, oil or then grated in small flakes to includes in various recipes.

In this article, we will discuss the various types of coconut and will see where they usually grow.

Though all coconuts are sourced from single species of palm tree known as Cocos nucifera, it produces a variety of coconut due to varying soil and climatic conditions.

Primarily coconut has two distinct varieties that are tall and dwarf.

• Tall varieties
• Dwarf varieties
• Hybrid varieties

Tall Coconut Varieties

The tall coconut palm is the most common among all types of coconut.

The average height of these coconut trees are 17m but usually, they range from 15 to 18 meter in height. Sometimes, if environmental conditions are favorable they can even grow more than 18 meters.

Another interesting fact about the coconut trees is that they can live up to 80 to 90 years and grow up to an altitude of 3,000 feet.

Though the tall varieties of the coconut palm can easily grow in laterite, coastal sandy, alluvial, and various different soil condition and can tolerate the wide range of pH from 5.0 to 8.0

The tall varieties of the coconut palm that found to be extensively grown are the West Coast Tall and East Coast Tall.

These species are fairly resistant to the disease and the pests but they need to be protected from the red palm weevil, the black-headed caterpillar, rhinoceros beetle, and the cockchafer beetle.

Tall varieties of coconut often produce the medium to the big size of fruits that vary in color shades from green, brown, orange and yellow.

During the season of pollination, it is found that these trees can cross-pollinate so it results in more varieties of coconut.

Dwarf Coconut Variety

These are exactly opposite to the tall varieties. They are dwarf in nature, as the name suggests. Dwarf varieties of the coconut trees can grow up to 60 feet.

The length can differ from 20 to 60 feet. As compared to their tall counterparts the lifespan of these varieties is a bit less and they can live up to the 25 to 50 years.

With a short lifespan than taller variety and less height, it also tends to produce the small size of coconut fruit that weighs around 80 to 90 grams and has a smaller size and rounded shape.

Though the fruits are smaller in size, these types of palm trees produce a large number of coconuts.

The color of fruits can range from green, yellow and orange and trees require an adequate supply of water as they are more drought susceptible.

Dwarf varieties of coconut have fewer varieties as compared to tall ones which may be the result of self-pollination.

Hybrid Coconut Variety

As the name suggests, these are the hybrid variety and produced through the cross between a tall and dwarf variety of coconut.

It is produced into the two variants. The first one includes the female from the tall variety and male from the dwarf variety while the other variant includes the opposite.

As it is a hybrid variety and has characteristics from both major variety, hybrid coconut trees tend to yield quality coconuts as compared to its parents.

They tend to flower early, grow well and yield well when provided good soil, environmental conditions, better nutrition, and proper irrigation

Dwarf Orange Coconut

These types of coconut trees yield the orange shade coconut fruits that can be reddish yellow in color.

The plant is self-pollinated and does not have multiple varieties.

These plants live up to 40 years and know to grow up to a height of 5 meters. usually, within 4 years of the plantation, they start to flower and produce the fruits.

Dwarf orange coconut is famous for its dense meat and sweet-tasting water and one plant can produce approximately 60 to 65 nuts in a year.

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