Hi everyone,
i am planning to "release" at the end of the year the first grafted trees ever of atemoya to be cultivated on the island.
I have heard about few attempts of growing atemoya here in the past. I suppose these were grown from seed thus ending in mixed results which may explain why so far atemoya is not commercially grown neither as it is in home yards; it is simply unknown.
I feel happy i could find this tree in a customer's yard that he brought in from an experimental station in Mauritius and that i find to be for the least "good" and not to say very yummy (not to me only but as well to many persons i gave it to try) see my post about it here
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=10299.msg131957#msg131957 and for which i did not get much input
. Even though it may not compete with all the top notch cultivars you guys are familiar with i.e. Pink mammoth, Geffner, African pride, Kj Pinks and so on. These will come soon hopefully- your contributions are most welcome
i have gone through quite a few threads on the forum dealing with annona rootstocks and could get quite a few tips to consider in my thinking, thanks a lot to all those who contributed still i was feeling like i may get more specific answers to my specific case. So here it is:
Considering that:
- atemoya seeds and cherimoya seeds are so far a rather scarce resource around here (i still must have currently about 100 seedlings in the nursery)
- A. reticulata seeds are plenty and readily available around (i must have about 2 hundreds seedlings in the nursery that are ready to be grafted)
- places where atemoya is supposed to be adapted at its best are dry tropical like conditions (average minimum monthly temperature of 21,6°C/annual rainfall 600mm)
- and of course as per the natural compatibility or incompatibility habits of Annonas
What would be my best option regarding the choice of rootstocks to propose some trees that will thrive the most in the conditions mentioned above which are the conditions where talking about annonas sugar apple and bullock heart are the rules (which correspond to an elevation on the island from sea level up to an estimated 500m)?
finally i was wondering how atemoya could behave in much wetter places (annual rainfall from 2000mm to 4000mm) with temperatures slightly cooler ...would they be worth growing and if yes on which rootstock? in these areas, bullock heart and soursop are the most common annonas...
thanks for any input,
Samuel, Reunion island