The Tropical Fruit Forum

Quote from: fruitlovers on March 29, 2012, 10:04:48 PM

Harry, i don't understand why you had poor results from seed for papayas. All papayas are started from seeds, i'm talking whole plantations here are started from seeds.
Oscar

Of course I am aware that seed propagation is quite common and even the norm for papayas.  I am talking about my own personal experience only and did not mean to imply that this was a universal result in the seed planting world.  In my experience, I have planted out seeds from papayas that I have purchased, and thought were better than most of the other papayas that I have tried locally and the resulting seedlings produced fruit that was, as I said,  "lousy to mediocre."  I wish I could have reported better results and assume that plantations around the world must be starting with better seed choices than I apparently made.  I have fruited two groups of papayas by intentional plantings.  One set was from a red fleshed variety that I tried at Going Bananas and the other from a store bought fruit from the Dominican Republic.  The results were as I stated.  I never got anything with red flesh either.  What did I do wrong? Also, at least once a year,a bird (I  assume) drops seed in my yard somewhere and papaya plants grow on their own without my involvement.  The fruits from each and everyone of these has fit my description....in fact, they are usually at the worse end of the described spectrum.  But, not having had the parent, I really can't comment on those as I did with the plants I purposely cultivated.

Harry

Papaya taste is influenced not only by seed stock you start with but also climate and soil.
Oscar

I have 2 huge trees of caimito (the 'green' type).  One tree produces loads every year (fruiting now), the other tree hardly produces any.
I like the flavor, but the sticky lip problem keeps me from eating them without a spoon!

I find this sticky lip problem much worse with abius.
Oscar

Here's my 2 cents....I have tasted Caimitos from many trees in SFLA, Puerto Rico and in Jamaica. They are a good tasting fruit but not nearly as tasty as a top notch Abiu like my Marisa tree or the Grey from Australia . It produces a delicious fruit so maybe those Hawaiian Abius produce inferior fruit.  Hard to say. We also do not have any fruit fly problems with them in my area YET.   I have a good sized Caimito that I bought from Excaliber and it has flowered heavily for 4 years in row and ZERO fruit have set. It is starting to flower again.  If it does not set any fruit this time, I am seriously thinking of renaming it "Excaliber Fruitless". 
FGM     

FYI we have all the good Australian abiu cultivars here, but you don't have all the good starapple cultivars in FL. In fact i doubt you have much above and beyond Haitian? Both these fruits are very common here, unlike in FL. You are lucky you don't have Oriental fruit fly yet, as soon as you do all your unbagged abius will look like this:

A picture they say is worth a thousand words? Maybe now you understand my point?
Oscar

Sure, in that case i would have grabbed them up myself. I remember i bought a Holiday avocado that way from Home Depot because nobody here normally carries it. Unfortunately the plant didn't survive long.
Oscar

Apart from the obvious impossibles - avocado and mango are the two I would avoid as the fruits are typically inferior. I even understand from previous discussions that some seedling avocado trees never bear fruit which is a problem I have not encountered in Uganda where 99% of all avocado planted are from seeds.

That's right. I'm the one that brought that up before. One of my seedling avocados has never fruited. Why that would be i don't fully understand? Perhaps some abnormality in the flower pollenization process?
With mango you have the advantage over strictly sexually produced avocado seeds for starting from seed that some mango seeds (SE Asian) are polyembryonic, so you can hypothetically choose offspring from polyembryonic mango seeds that are clonal.
Oscar

I had some green scale, and ants all over some abiu seedlings I have.

I tried a few different times to squish them with my hands, and to apply micro nutritional spays to the trees to get them to grow out of it.

These methods didn't help, and I'm not one to spray pesticides...so the scale got worse.

A week ago, when I was fiddling around with my new hose attachment.  It has a setting (one of about 6) called "Flat".  Its not as harsh as nozzle, or full, but its more powerful than mist.

I held the leaves and stems of the abiu, and proceeded to spray them off, like pressure cleaning, with the hose.  After about 5 min, I had reduced the scale infestation to about 10%.  I repeat this method as much as I can (every 3 days, or more if possible).  The end result is the ants moving away, and the scale not being able to get a footing on your leaves, which are subjected to blasts of water every 3 days.

The leaves (even the young tender ones) don't seem to mind so much, and only show minimal signs of wear and tear.  The hardest scales to get, are the ones along the main nerve of the leaves, near the base...especially the smaller scales.   but repeated trauma does them in...trust me....keep spraying religiously for a few weeks (about 3) and it will whoop that scale and ants behinds!

Now go get em!

Good idea. Since you are already spraying your plants why not attach a hose sprayer and also hit that scale with some dishwashing soap or horticultural oil? Make those scales even more miserable.
Oscar

Thanks for the advice.  I got three varieties of lychee because of the unreliable fruiting.  I have sweet heart, mauritious, and Hak Ip, my hope is that at least one of them will fruit each year.  My mango varieties are Coconut Cream, Lemon Zest, Mahachanok, and Carrie.  The reviews on these mangos have been good, so I am optimistic.

Another good reason to have more than one cultivar of lychee is to extend the season. Even if all 3 fruit they will fruit at slightly different times, hopefully, and extend your eating pleasure. So it's good to get an early, a mid season and a late seaon lychee as well as a reliable bearer.
Oscar

Just my 2 cents here:  It is so important to support the private fruit tree nurseries. The prices are actually CHEAPER than Costco and the other Big stores. The quality is better. There is much more variety. The nurseries actually offer SERVICE and advice.   I tell all of my friends and neighbors where to get their trees.

Yeah, Costco, Home Depot, Wal Mart, and other big top stores can drive smaller nurseries out of business. Not all nurseries because all these plants come from a nursery, these big top stores are middle men. But if the smaller nurseries get driven out of business what you will end up with is one giant nursery that only wholesales to Costco and will have a lot more limited variety than did all those smaller nurseries they put out of business. Also once that is the only nursery existing they will charge whatever they want....as then there will be no competition. So think before you buy. Or see the movie: The High Cost of Low Prices.
Oscar

As I said, some people love them. As far as the flavor being like "milk shake" I'm not really sure what you mean.  You mean like vanilla milkshake or another flavor.  Your description does not remotely express anything I've encountered and I wonder if I've been missing something in my caimito/starapple experience.  Oscar, your fruit is really quite impressive and do not doubt that it is one of the best, if not the best I have ever seen. Thankfully, we do not have flies attacking either of the two here in Florida so that negates that one serious issue you are having with abiu.  As far as overall attractiveness of the fruit, you are obviously correct.  The same goes for the foliage of the trees in comparison....caimito has the attractiveness down, for sure.

Neither, it is like a milk shake because it is juicy, milky colored juice, and sweet. Yeah you have been missing out on something. This is an excellent fruit, most people here like it. Abius and starapples are both very common in Hawaii, very different situation from Florida. I like both fruits a lot, but am inclined to starapple because it makes a lot more fruit, never is damaged by oriental fruit fly, and it is a much more attractive fruit to eat, both in color and interior star shape. Maybe also because i happen to have a really excellent tree. I just bought some little Haitian starapple fruits in market and they don't stand a candle to these bigger and sweeter fruits. The starapple tree is attractive enough to be planted as an ornamental, unlike the abiu. Also starapple makes a good shade tree.
Oscar

Central Florida is full of large Butia Capitata palms in yards and most people have no idea they are edible. I have sampled fruits from many Jelly palms and some have a very nice apricot-pineapple flavor while others are dry and bland. The good ones are very desirable and I would love to have a fruiting one in my yard but no way can I wait for 12 or 15 years!  I do have a ten year old Butia in a pot that is beautiful but has not flowered.           

Butia capitata is very common for landscaping also in California, and that is where i first tasted them. As a kid i thought they tasted like the Sweet tart candies. If you buy a plant from a nursery in a 2 gallon container, and they are usually quite cheap, you can get fruits in 4-5 years. Not bad at all and a very attractive plant.
Oscar

I don't know about this particular tool, but in general tools are great if you are doing hundreds of graft all the same, all the same diameter, all the same species. Not very good if you do an occasional graft of many differing types of species.
Oscar

Hopefully Noel will chime in about his tree and include some pics. I was at his house last weekend and he has a really nice looking tree that I think is over 10 years old he said. He bought it grafted from Excalibur and it has not fruited yet. I think he said it was getting ready to flower soon.

Starapple, or caimito, is an excellent fruit. In my opinion it's superior to abiu, not just in taste but also in the fact that no fruit flies sting them. Also they are a much more attractive fruit inside in color and shape than abiu. Here every single abiu is stung by oriental fruit fly unless you go through extra work of bagging every fruit or spraying, neither of which i do. The starapple has a thick enough rind that fruit flies cannot penetrate. The flavor is reminiscent of milk shake. In fact in Vietnam they call the fruit something like Mother's milk, or breast milk. Latex next to skin not a problem if you know how to eat it. You cut crosswise and spoon out, not eating parts very close to exterior skin.
I'm o f the opinion that i have the best and largest cultivar of starapple. I posted photos before but here goes again. Haitian on left and mine on right. As you can see it is way larger than Haitian cultivar:. (Really don't think Haitian is a good cultivar.)


I have not named it yet or registered yet. I'm willing to sell budwood to anyone interested. This tree does get large, but with pruning could be controlled to small size. My trees started fruiting from seed in about 5 years. They fruit abundantly always in beginning of Spring, so i'm eating them right now! I have a couple of grafted cultivars of green types but don't recommend them as here they get easily mold growing on the fruit. They are much thinner skinned and crack easily in our rainy environment. Might be good in Florida though? These green cultivars seem to stay a bit smaller than the purple.
Oscar

Butias are all over Gainesville, Florida.  I agree with you in the variability of the fruit quality.  Taste and size were all over the board.

Don't know how stable strains of Butia with good fruit characteristics would be developed? Palms can't be grafted. From seed there will always be variability. So i guess only way would be tissue culture?
Oscar