The Tropical Fruit Forum

BTW the green coconut,  is it root stimulating or what does it do with the cuttings?

Hmm.. no oven in our lowland garden. Could make a fire in a drum barrel and put sand into a smaller metal container
and place the container into that drum..?

Paulo, we do have some seedlings and trees of S. malaccense but I haven't practised grafting yet so not sure I'd be successful on my first attempt
And your English is quite good so no don't worry!

Yes we have seen them 3 or 4 times but never ripe seeds. The new leaves are beautiful so we wanted to collect seeds for us too but so far no luck. We haven't seen them here in Western Province yet.
If we find ripe seeds we'll let you know.

This is especially for you all who have had good experience in propagating cuttings of various Syzygium spp.

We're now in a small village in Western Province among hunters- and gatherers. They only grow a limited amount of plants/crops, and amazingly one single village's majority of crops are Syzygium, quite oddly! They have selected the sweetest species from the forest, and left behind the less appealing / sour ones. And they exist in this single village only, not elsewhere in the area because this is the only place with clay soil, all others villages are muddy with brackish river water flooding their areas regularly.

And we're so surprised by the amazing diversity of Syzygiums in one single village's gardens! We've noted over 10 distinct cultivated species or varieties so far in just two household gardens (and way many more sour species/varieties in the forest). Amazing hidden treasure!

All other villages we've visited in New Guinea only cultivated two species: S. aqueum and S. malaccense, so far...

Our local friend here told us that one species has huge black fruits, 20 cm wide, that's 8 inches! Can it really be true? Several others in the village confirmed this. It has red flesh inside and is "swit" (which means "sweet" but it often simply mean great tasting, non-acid, but not necessarily "sugary sweet").

He showed us the mother plant in the forest, and the leaves are enormous (50 cm long, more or less) and beautifully veined, and the tree is the biggest Syzygium tree we've seen, easily 40 m tall with a straight erect trunk measuring 1 m in diameter, but they do successfully cut the top off in their garden to create a shorter bushier tree.

Another tree has several 10 cm big red fruits hanging from the tips of the branches, just 5 metres (15 ft) tall.

Another one have 5-10 cm big whitish-red fruits in big panicles with 5-10 fruits hanging directly from the trunks and 5 metres tall (15 ft)

... and so on ...

This is a haven for selected Syzygium, which we haven't seen elsewhere. So let's preserve this diversity!

Now enough background, let's get to our urgent point:

Not many of them are in fruit now, and the people have cleaned around the trees so there are no seedlings for most of them.

But we really do want to grow them as their future is uncertain as there's a logging company close by and the river keeps getting bigger every year washing away parts of their gardens every year.

And eventually to share them with you, of course!

So, anyone know if there's a good chance of survival for Syzygium cuttings of various species? Several of them look more like S. malaccense than the more easily-rooted S. aqueum...

Any advice, how should we do when we fly home on August 27th?

Bear in mind, being in New Guinea with little supplies available, we don't have access to advanced stuff. We do have ample of own-grown coconut husks, lots of river gravel or sand of various sizes from the nearby river if sand is needed, plastic pots of old soda bottles (or could plant directly into the ground if that's better)...

We also have little, very little, 5 or 10 years old rooting hormone (half of a small now-old-fashioned camera-film-roll can) and we don't have any horticultural chemicals apart from some pesticides (pyrethrines and Imidacloprid and possibly one fungicide and some Osmocote pearl fertilizer (both 13-13-13 and .. uh a second version with higher of one of N or P or K.

So, from what we have, can we ensure good rate of survival of cuttings of those amazing Syzygiums?

Advice please - so we later can share our bounty of seeds with you folks later to try out those amazing New Guinean Syzygiums.

Oscar, you might also want to change her email address in your quote of her email, as the @ is still there in the quote for the spiders to catch

If you want the best fingerlime cultivars, you'll need to buy seed  from Australia.

This seller has the best of them, reds purples, pinks yellows and greens.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/20-Fresh-Finger-Lime-Seeds-10-Red-Champagne-10-Pink-Best-Buy-Combi-Seed-Mix-/281378586296?pt=AU_Plants_Seeds_Bulbs&hash=item4183787eb8

Thanks for the links!

Starling1 - what if I travel to Australia and buy small grafted plants, where would I find the best selection as I don't want to wait 15 years from seeds to first harvest?

And, would they like the wet humid tropics, or would they only thrive in the subtropics?

Sumatraexotics - no worries, I know what it is like as I had to learn English too and it was** confusing at first to learn another language    (** CORRECTION, I wrote "wasn't" by mistake  )


John,
Some people told us it may take about 5, 10 years or even 15 years, but it is hard to ask about time here in Papua New Guinea, they just say "short time, average time, long time" and randomly pick a number suiting their description but not necessarily correct (example - when we are hiking in the forests, in my first years here I asked how far it is to that mountain, they say 2 or 3 hours. It seems too close for me, but we go ahead, and it takes 8 hours. I asked if this was 2-3 hours? Answer "Yes".   )

So I asked, when you plant it, how long until you can eat it. An elder told me, he planted it for his son when he was a small boy, it was ready when he was about to marry. So 10-15 years sounds correct in this case.

I did experiment with the growth rate: I planted two Pandanus julianettii 1,5 year ago as a small seedling from the forest, circa 20 cm tall (8 inch), one like the locals do and imitating its natural habitat, ie. in a moist place near a waterway / overflow from the water tank, not adding any nutrients, now it double the height, 40 cm tall. So 20 cm / 8 inches so far.

Its sibling I planted two metres downhills from a compost pile (food scraps and garden garbage), so nutrients leaching with the rain reaches the plant. This plant is growing double as fast, grew more than 1 ft in the same time. Still pretty slow.

But the growth rate in that plant seems to have started to speed up lately as the plants ages so I hope it will shorten the waiting time.

Pandanus conoideus grows much faster than that, about 2-4 years to bearing from root shoots.

Quote from: DurianLover on July 15, 2014, 09:49:17 AM

Quote from: Kapiak on July 15, 2014, 09:35:47 AM

I am interested to know that too, so I can take precautions before planting so there won't be any trouble later.

Which one is it and what makes it invasive? Seeds, roots, or...?

Invasive root shoots = could use steel drums without bottom (we got plenty of those here in New Guinea). Works nicely with quick-spreading gingers and running bamboos here.

Looks like roots. Does living tree also produce numerous  root shoots or only when you trying to get rid of it?

http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=1975.msg27242#msg27242
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=8946.msg114936#msg114936

Yes, i've posted about this before. In ultra tropical locations the bakuri can become invasive. Don't think that is going to be a problem outside its natural range. The main problem comes about if you cut the tree down, then you get shoots coming up from all the roots. So it's best to plant it in location where you are not going to try to remove it later. The other thing i mentioned in previous thread is that bakuri can be grafted onto other garcinias or rheedias. That would also solve problem of invasive roots.

Perfect, thanks Oscar and DurianLover, it helps to know that!
I have some spare seedlings of Garcinias that could be rootstocks for that purpose.

I understand what you mean Sumatraexotics.

It was just a friendly suggestion to easier reach your goal, but I may be wrong...

I'm hoping you'll get those seeds as I'd like to grow it...

Haha, it is of course your choice how to set the price - it is not for me to tell you.

It was just a friendly suggestion, because you may get less buyers if the seeds costs more. Especially if there are other sellers that sells something similar for one third, for example on Ebay you can get 8 seeds for £6 for mentawak from Sarawak, like Bangkok here showed a link to. Hence my advice to you to easier cover your trip for this mentawak

Any good nursery in Australia who sells various varieties of Finger limes with phytosanitary certificate, that we could purchase upon our next visit to Australia?

Do you Australians know if the finger limes would do well in the lowland humid tropics without a distinct dry season (just slightly drier) but we do have access to tonnes of river gravel in any size if they need good drainage... Or are they better off at 1500 m altitude, as we have a garden up there as well?

It is the right season for Okari nut now here in New Guinea, our tree is has a lot of ripe fruits falling down. One of my favourite nuts, tastes just like soft crunchy almonds, with a fresh taste.

We have lots of seeds and 5-15 cm tall seedlings under the mother tree but unfortunately they shell is way TOO big to ship, so they won't leave the post office... (ca 15 cm wide and 6-10 cm high)

I also have got two unidentified Terminalia from lowland primary forest highly prized by locals. The shell of the two latter is much thinner = easier to send in smaller parcel (edible kernel still good sized, just the shell that is thinner). But they're just 1 year old so not producing yet in a few years' time... when they do I'll be happy to share with you folks.

Hope you get success in finding some in the US. It is a beautiful tree as well!