Questions About An Obscure Plant
 

Hi! I'm looking for anyone who can help with some first hand experience growing Melegueta Pepper, Aframomum
melegueta. Although the seeds are growing in popularity here as a spice, the plants themselves are apparently extremely rare in cultivation. At least that seems to be the case here in the US. I suspect that only those who have worked in a botanical garden or a similar situation would have ever seen an actual plant here. However due to the international nature of this forum, perhaps a fellow hobbyist could provide some info. I'm interested in any experience, especially germination advice. Thank in advance!

I don't grow this but I grow some other 'house plants'. Quite often, when you grow things that are not often grown in the home, the information given about growing in the home is absolutely wrong. I have learned that the best way to figure out how to grow these 'house plants' is by discovering where they grow (a name of a city and country where it is found is VERY HELPFUL) and then looking up the rainfall, temperatures and anything else you can learn about the climate, soil, etc. If it is a specific type of environment (low-elevation rainforest), I try to learn about how things grow there. Some of these plants that are grown for commercial use even have a page that has this information for those who wish to set up their own plantations and those are really great if you stumble upon them.
Good luck! Hopefully someone else grows this or lives where it is grown. :)

I haven't grown it but I've grown other things in the ginger family Zingeberaceae. Seeds are often difficult to sprout unless very fresh. Some gingers grow best in cool moist climates while others are lowland hot-growing species, so you have to find out where it's from. Also figure out how big it gets before it flowers. Lots of gingers are big to enormous before they flower.

Maybe this will help???

JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

Don't worry about the error message, if you click on the link it takes you directly to the page on the cultivation.


Found another site.

AFRAMOMUM MELEGUETA - ALLIGATOR PEPPER.

And another.
Propagation of Alligator Peppers | Home Guides | SF Gate