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Topics - shaneatwell

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76
Temperate Fruit Discussion / Germinating strawberry tree (arbutus unedo)
« on: February 22, 2015, 08:25:47 PM »
Latest batch from my favorite tree sitting in coco coir in the fridge for 2 months:



And the products of my previous attempt. Two pics of seeds that germinated in coco coir and then transplanted:





Plus some seeds that I similarly cold stratified, but in a paper towel in a ziplock. They got moldy so i threw them all in a pot:



And lastly the sole seedling I got from my first attempt when I didn't use cold stratification:




77
Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / How would one move a tree like this?
« on: January 26, 2015, 08:21:13 PM »
http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/grd/4852378308.html

78
Citrus General Discussion / top and multi-graft?
« on: December 02, 2014, 09:12:23 PM »
I have well established, mostly healthy dwarf lemon (unknown cultivar) that produces too much lemons for us. Also, I'd like to get more citrus in my yard but don't have enough room. Does it make sense to top the lemon and multi-graft it? Or am I tempting fate? Is it going to grow too aggressively? The shoots I get even after minor pruning are already pretty aggressive.

79
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Palmer Mangos in San Diego
« on: October 12, 2014, 08:03:17 PM »
The Fruit Shop on Convoy has them. I haven't tasted them yet, but bought a box. Nice looking Mango.

Reviews here have been mixed:
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=9786.msg144299#msg144299
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=6398.msg89559#msg89559

80
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Propagating Litchi/Longan by root cuttings?
« on: October 11, 2014, 09:04:48 PM »
I was reading an old forestry book on propagation and it discusses propagation by root cuttings. I've also noticed that even small liberated roots of carrotwood are throwing up shoots in various parts of my yard.

Has anyone tried propagating lychee, longan or any of the other soapberry family trees (rambutan, guinep, pulasan, ackee, etc) by root cuttings?

The only mention I've found online is this patent:
http://www.google.com/patents/US5584140

According to this thread, most Lychee and Longan are propagated by air layering, so the roots should be the desired variety. But I have also seen videos before on approach grafted Longan or Lychee.
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=1899.5

81
Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / san diegans w loquots
« on: September 03, 2014, 09:59:34 PM »
Im looking for interesting loquot scions. Have two unnamed grafted onto my champagne seedling but a bunch of water shoots i want to graft onto as well. I can pick up if youre in the county

82
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Reed Avocados in San Diego County
« on: August 18, 2014, 12:13:45 AM »
The fruit stand at the SE corner of Hwy 76 and Interstate 15 finally has Reed avocados. I've been waiting to get these for a while. Got some yesterday. Excited to taste them.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/hwy-76-fruitstand-fallbrook

Also, in case you hadn't seen it in other posts Atkins has Reed and other top notch avocado trees.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/atkins-nursery-fallbrook

83
Tropical Fruit Discussion / kei apple - dovyalis caffra
« on: July 30, 2014, 01:35:09 AM »
Based on lots of negative to neutral reviews I'd not considered growing kei apple but had the good fortune to try it today at exotica. Loved it! Has an almost vegetable taste up front reminiscent of radish somehow which quickly transitions into a perfect balance of sweet and tangy. Had to buy a couple trees on the spot. Steve was very careful this time to distinguish between rooted cuttings and seedlings. Going to train it into a sort of barbed wire above my back wall. Along with a guamuchil i scored at HD this weekend.

84
Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / San Diegans
« on: July 23, 2014, 04:28:23 PM »
Chilean Wine Palm available on craigslist, $5-25
http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/grd/4566880296.html

Also I noticed that Seafood City on Mira Mesa has some interesting trees (from Champa Nursery) at outrageous prices: Molix and Morena Sapodilla, Green Sugar Apple, Kohala Longan, Mauritius Litchee, Hog Plum.

85
Tropical Fruit Discussion / My yard after a year
« on: July 20, 2014, 02:46:49 PM »
Ive been redoing my yard as edibles for a bit more than a year now. Heres how it looks starting with the back left corner of the back yard and moving clockwise around the property.

Two avocados on the left. Hass below and fuerte above. Been doing lots of grafting experiments on these. Chandler pomelo. Thompsons seedless grape which got some fungus from the HOAs english ivy. Kadota fig with lots of fruit. Also an allspice hiding in the cucumber.


Suebelle white sapote on the leftmost edge. Then earligold apricot, champagne seedling loquot multigrafted, backberry, boysenberry, wooly pindo palm. In the middle my mango seedling experiment not looking great. Frederick passionfruit on the far wall. Babaco in front of strawberries on the lower right. And the touch of green on the lower right ground is a peanut butter tree seedling.



Cape gooseberry, li jujube, asparagus and strawberries behind. Ive tried about 6 different strawberries and only evie2 everbearing has florished.


Lillikoi passiflora intertwined with scarlet runner bean. Unknown lemon.


My just completed 'greenhouse'. 30% shadecloth above. Sprinkler system on both sides. Lots of fun plants: valentine pomello, jan boyce and reed avos, jackfruit, surinam cherry, rainforest plum, and varrious jaboticaba seedlings. Seedless grape called 'blueberry'.


Likely sabara jabo on right, cherry of the rio grande on the left. Some draggon fruits on the fence that arent doing well.


Pakistan mulberry center. Sunshine blue blueberries under the windows. Vietnamese giant white dragonfruit in the pot behind the pigmy date palms.


Triple mexican papaya far left. Were equal height until a couple months ago then two got something in their tops and the third, a hermie, is twice their volume and a couple feet taller. Meiwa kumquot, gin berry, australian finger lime, key lime. Lime was suffering what looked like magnesium deficiency. They're all in clay at neuttal pH so i hit it with 5gallons of water adjusted to pH 5 with sulfuric acid and half the plant greened right up. Doing the same with the finger lime today.


Espalier anna apple and hood pear. Garden prince almond. Volunteer cherry tomato taking over in the middle.


Vermillion seedling surinam cherry from leo and unnamed from ethan. Seedling carobs in the box.


Sorry for the tablet pictures. Will update text and perhaps photos later.

86
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Corona Avocado
« on: April 11, 2014, 11:03:20 AM »
I subscribe to a couple avocado of the month clubs, avocadodiva and avocadoofthemonthclub, and a few days ago got a box from the latter. It contained Hass and "Corona". The Corona was wonderful. All the nuttiness of the hass with a bit of the florida avocado wateriness that made it fresh. Think of all the hass flavor with less fat. The flesh was firmer. Fruit the size of a largish Hass. I've had two and the seed from the first was bigger than hass and from the second smaller.

I did a search for "Corona Avocado" and can't find mention of it. Lots of stuff about shears, packing houses and the town.

Anyone heard of it? Perhaps its a ripoff of some other avocado?

pic coming of hass on left and corona on right, fully ripe.



87
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Pithecellobium Dulce, Guamuchil, Manilla Tamarind
« on: March 10, 2014, 10:20:51 PM »
Quote from: GreenThumb on December 20, 2012, 01:20:48 PM
Plants in pots but can be in ground.. { i have a major prob. with Deer getting to them, so i have them in pots  ;D}
Pakistan mulberry, ever bearing mulberry,  Ice-cream Banana, Papaya, miho satsuma,Ujukitsu, kumquat, calamondin, sunburst tangerine, royal lee and minnie royal cherries, pink and white guavas, Fantastic Avocado, Mission Olive, Moringa (drumstick tree), Pithecellobium dulce (guamichile or sweet madras or manilla tamarind), Rabbiteye Blueberries, passion fruit vine.

I don't see much discussion of this tree here. Seems like a spiky version of ice cream bean. Interested in growing it for edible yet fearsome hedge. Anyone have experience with it? In California?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pithecellobium_dulce

Main complaints in other forums appears to be cold sensitivity and abundance of seedlings.

88
Tropical Fruit Discussion / First taste of custard apple
« on: February 04, 2014, 09:09:08 PM »
couldn't place the taste but after my daughter said 'that's really familiar' i thought about it some more and realized it was fruit loops!

loved it.

nm. pretty sure it was cherimoya (cherimola?) not reticulata.

89
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Mexican Avocado leaf smell
« on: January 26, 2014, 09:06:51 PM »
Got myself a Mexicola from HD for grafting. Crushed some leaves and I don't get anise or licorice, smells more like cilantro to me. That just my nose?

90
Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / Heirloom Trees?
« on: January 23, 2014, 11:08:22 AM »
This question has been bugging me for a year.

Heirloom plants are ones that when self-crossed produce progeny that are identical to the parents. They are developed by self-crossing and selecting for many generations (usually seven or more) until all the genetics are homozygous, i.e. 'fixed'. That is, genes on the two copies of every chromosome are the same (as opposed to having heterozygous dominant + recessive pairs). Thus all the self-crosses are the same as the parent because there's no diversity of genes. Heirloom plants are used by gardeners because they can replant seeds every year instead of buying new ones.

Is this ever done with fruit trees? There's not really the need and by the time you did it, your variety would probably be passe, but still. Anyone know? When I google for heirloom fruit trees all I get are varieties that have been grafted for decades, not at all the same meaning as for e.g. tomatoes.

91
Tropical Fruit Discussion / San Diego CRFG members
« on: January 20, 2014, 10:54:19 AM »
Reminder that the North County CRFG scion exchange is this friday (1/24/14) @ 7pm.

http://nc.crfgsandiego.org/Home/tabid/285/ModuleID/827/ItemID/73/mctl/EventDetails/Default.aspx

Hoping to meet some local forum members there. Simon? PltdWorld? Marklee? Nullzero?

92
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Guerilla grafting on Brush Cherry (syzygium paniculatum aka eugenia myrtifolia)
« on: January 19, 2014, 05:29:40 PM »
Ok, so its not really guerilla since its my own bushes I cut down a year ago, but it is converting mostly useless landscape bushes into tasty fruit. I cut some 10-20 year old bushes and attempted to poison them, but got water sprouts anyway. Not too surprising. Decided to attempt some approach grafting with other syzygiums and eugenia.

Started two months ago and just liberated them. All graphs were wrapped with twine and then tapped. Surinam was additionally wrapped loosely with saran wrap.

First was Surinam Cherry (Eugenia Uniflora). Good fusion despite surinam's leaves turning deep red. But that could just be the cold, since most of my other (ungrafted) surinams turned the same way.

Before liberation. Note how the leaves are nearly identical in size and shape. Before the surinam turned red, they couldn't be told apart.


Surinam unwrapped. Great fusion the entire length.


Sweet Java Plum (syzygium cumini) grafted on Brush Cherry:


Unwrapped. Pretty good fusion, but the bottom started to peal away after unwrapping. Note the middle branch that has a cumini branch on one side and paniculatum on the other)


Lastly Rose Apple (syzygium jambos i believe from Exotica)



Notice how the bottom is pealing away. I tied it back.


All together




Will keep y'all updated.

93
Tropical Fruit Discussion / eisenhower avocado?
« on: January 19, 2014, 01:11:23 PM »
Anyone come across the 'eisenhower' avocado mentioned in this post?

http://www.clovegarden.com/ingred/laurel.html

94
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Interesting interview on bees and colony collapse
« on: January 16, 2014, 12:55:46 PM »
From my favorite economics podcast:

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2013/12/wally_thurman_o.html

Mark in Texas i think will especially like it.

95
Tropical Fruit Discussion / San Diego Fruit Shop has
« on: January 14, 2014, 09:59:03 PM »
Cherimoya (not surprising), Sapodilla and Kent Mangos from Ecuador and Peru. Just finished a Kent from Ecuador and it was excellent. The sapodilla and the cherimoya still ripening up.

96
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Multiple rootstock tech as disease treatment
« on: January 14, 2014, 11:41:01 AM »
Simon posted this a while ago and I'm curious if there are documented examples of multiple rootstock technology being used to treat or prevent disease, especially in citrus or avocado?

Quote from: simon_grow on April 27, 2012, 01:27:19 PM
Thanks for all the information.  The repots on interplanting with Guava is really interesting.  Too bad I still can't find a place that sells Seedless Vietnamese Guava, they are extremely delicious.  I will be picking up a few pherimone traps to protect my citrus.  The research regarding Genetically modified citrus with the Spinach gene looks promising.  I remember reading somewhere that there was some sort of ailment killing many citrus trees and trees were eventually saved by multiple rootstock technology.  The additional rootstock added to existing trees were resistant to whatever disease or ailment was affecting the fruitcrop tree. 
Simon

97
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Arbor w/ pull down walls = greenhouse?
« on: December 02, 2013, 12:28:28 PM »
I'm thinking of building an arbor/pergola like this (but longer and with more posts):

http://www.walpolewoodworkers.com/pergolas-arbors/pergolas/pergola-arched-square-column-with-canopy.aspx#.UpzBeidnDZV

with retractable roof/walls like this to pull down in the winter:

http://www.southernpatioenclosures.com/products-patio-enclosures-and-outdoor-sun-shades/buying-from-southern-patio-enclosures-is-different/

Would appreciate your help with comments/suggestions. I anticipate that leaf clutter could be an issue on top (where I plan to grown grape or kiwi), and that the tracks might corrode (especially with the moisture inside the greenhouse). Any other potential problems? Countersuggestions? I want the openness of an arbor in the summer, and will have a table there for entertaining/hanging out.

98
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Does a pool moderate cold temps?
« on: November 30, 2013, 07:52:56 PM »
Has anyone measured how a pool affects yard temps and how far it extends? Specifically at near or just freezing.

99
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Longan on Carrotwood graft update
« on: November 23, 2013, 07:01:13 PM »
Update on the graft I mentioned in this thread: http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=7757.25

About 4 months ago simon_grow kindly donated a kohala longan tree to me so that I could experiment on grafting it to an established carrotwood. Intergeneric and interspecific grafts have fascinated me since I started getting into growing, mainly for the chance at converting well established trees to something that fruits. I've had my eye on our backyard carrotwood, a sapindaceae member, for a while. Lychee, guarana, rambutan are all family members. Ackee, another family member, actually has the most resemblance in terms of fruits. But of the edible sapindaceae, Longan is probably the best established in socal in terms of cold tolerance and fruiting reliability.

Lychee and longan graft best using an approach method so I figured that's what I'd have to do and simon's longan allowed me to try.

I hoisted the pot into the branches, secured it and approach grafted two limbs. I shaved off what was probably 1/4th of the bark in a 4" stretch on each side of matching limbs. Bound them together with twine (the stuff from the center of baseballs) and taped with electricians tape. One branch pushed new leaves in two spots just after grafting, the other did nothing. One month after the graft I cut 1/4th of the bark and into the wood below the graft on the longan branch that had leafed out. There was a second wave of new leaves pushing on the leafed branch, which immediately ceased growing after the first cut. I repeated this two more times in successive months, circling the donor branch. At about the 3rd month most of the rest of the donor tree lost its leaves as did the other graft. I had been watering the pot, but perhaps not enough. This last thursday (21NOV2013) at the 4th month I liberated both scions from the donor tree. The leaves on the nice looking graft have looked great for 3.5 months, with no signs of wilt/burn etc. Meanwhile most of the older leaves on the donor tree have shown tip burn and dropped.

I like that one of the grafts has leafed out. I think it indicates that for that one at least I had good cambium matches. But I was a bit bummed to read in The Grafter's Handbook by R.J.Garner that exuberant growth in a intergeneric graft can be a sign of ultimate graft failure (page 52).

Here's a picture from this morning.


Here's when the tree was still tied up.


And here's a closeup of the graft after the first cut.


I've also got 3 syzigium grafts going on my brush cherry and am contemplating a loquot on india hawthorn next.

100
Tropical Fruit Discussion / polyembryony
« on: October 22, 2013, 12:40:13 AM »
Found an interesting post on polyembryony
http://www.ubergardener.com/grow-true-to-type-citrus-from-seed/

I dont think this has been found true experimentally in all mangos:
Quote
Nucellar embryos begin development as soon as pollination occurs while zygotic embryos take four weeks to develop; thus, nucellar embryos often crowd out the zygotic embryos.

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