How are your Cherimoyas doing?

[simon_grow]

Just wanted to see how everyone's Cherimoyas are doing. I've had some health issues this year so I haven't been maintaining my garden and I only hand pollinated my Cherimoyas early in the season. With Santa Anna conditions today, I expect many of my fruit to get blown off, drop or get sunburned.

I've had a couple early El Bumpos and they were good but like I've noticed in previous years, the mid to late fruit is much better. I normally heavily thin my fruit but I missed a couple rounds of thinning this year. Here are a few pics. My multigraft tree has El Bumpo, Behls, Dr White, Booth, Pierce, Selma, honeyhart, Orton, Spain, Rudy, African Pride Leo Hybrid and probably a few I forgot









Simon

[AnnonaMangoLord45]

My cherimoya is growing like a weed, survived 110+ weather no sweat, grew from 3 feet to a whopping 7 in 6 months!

[Samu]

Great photos of your Cherimoyas, thanks for posting Simon!
(My 5 trees are still young, 4-8ft tall, only about 1.5 years or so in the ground, hopefully will start to bear fruits in earnest in a few years...).

[simon_grow]

I love how fast Cherimoyas grow here, at least until it come time for pruning. I just wish Mangos grew this fast. What varieties do you have?

Careful pruning at a short height is important in order to create a low canopy to facilitate hand pollination and harvesting of fruit. The good thing about Cherimoyas is that you can cut a neglected tree to knee height and it will push lots of new growth which can then be grafted once it reaches the appropriate size and age.

Orton was one of the favorites last year and in my opinion it even beat El Bumpo. The taste, texture and sugar acid balance of Cherimoyas are highly variable from year to year, tree to tree and even between fruit harvested from the same tree. I guess this is similar to Mangos. I always get surprised by what's top tier in a particular year but the perennial favorites seem to be El Bumpo, Pierce, Orton and several others.

Simon

[simon_grow]

Great photos of your Cherimoyas, thanks for posting Simon!
(My 5 trees are still young, 4-8ft tall, only about 1.5 years or so in the ground, hopefully will start to bear fruits in earnest in a few years...).

Sam, patience will pay off for you. By letting your tree establish before allowing it to hold fruit, you will get more and higher quality fruit once your tree becomes of age. What varieties do you have?

On a side note, an old friend of mine that I have not seen in a long time that actually got me into Cherimoyas is going to give me budwood from his original tree. The fruit from this tree was the first Cherimoya I have ever eaten, this was about 30 years ago!

Anyways, I'm happy his tree is still alive as I remember the fruit was superb. The best thing about this unnamed variety is that it has excellent acidity. It's been 30 years since I've had this fruit so my memory has not much details about the other attributes of the fruit but I remember that it was good enough to get me addicted to Cherimoyas. I'll graft this onto my tree and have more info in the coming years. If this turns out to be a top tier fruit, I'll share scions with the members of this forum.

Simon

[fyliu]

Very bad for me this year. I think there's fewer than 10 fruits this year from 3 trees combined. Fruits that already set turned black and fell off. I'm not sure what the problem is other than heat. One smaller tree is in partial shade.

[Samu]

The varieties of Cherimoyas/Atemoyas I have: African Pride, Honeyheart, Super African Pride (JF's), El Bumpo and Unnamed variety. I have sinced added multiple variety of scions on them too, like: Dream, Orton, Dr. White, Australian Atemoya, Radhika etc...

Here are a couple of photos of the trees: (Due to limited space, I planted them close to each other):

African pride and Honeyheart:



Unnamed; El Bumpo and Super African Pride:

[simon_grow]

Nice pics Sam, that's like planting two trees in one hole, a great space saver. Looks like you will be in annona heaven in the coming years. Remember you want ultra low branching because Cherimoyas are very vigorous upright growers.

Simon

[huertasurbanas]

Hi, I let my 3 years old chirimoya to grow upright, 3m tall (10 feet), because it's near a wall and a greenhouse and I needed that way... would it be very difficult to get the fruit then?

[behlgarden]

I have may be 5 or 6 cherimoya fruits this year across my 4 mature trees. I had been pollinating since the start of flowering, each time we got fruit set we got heat wave burning small fruitlets. It happened 3 times and rest is a sad story. Wondering if anyone else experienced same destruction of fruits this year.

[Bhkkatemoya]

Those are some big beautiful cherimoyas Simon.  Sorry to hear about your health. Hope you get better.

Here's one of my atemoyas.  I got this from Mark last year and forgot which variety. 

My producer from last year have not put out any flower this year.

[simon_grow]

Very bad for me this year. I think there's fewer than 10 fruits this year from 3 trees combined. Fruits that already set turned black and fell off. I'm not sure what the problem is other than heat. One smaller tree is in partial shade.

Fang, that's a shame. i wonder if an atemoya will perform better for you?

Huertasurbanas, 10 feet is ok but you want the fruiting branches lower for easier hand pollination and harvesting.

Behl, looks like you and Fang are in the same boat. My larger tree is in my backyard right next to a fence so it gets lots of shade which probably protected it from extreme heat. My smaller tree in the front has much less fruit.

Thanks Bhkkatemoya, I'm much better now but have a lot of work to catch up on. I wonder if shade cloth will help those of you living in extreme heat areas to retain more fruit.

Simon

[fyliu]

Yeah, Behl and I might need to switch to atemoyas. Our area may be getting too hot for cherimoyas. Maybe adding more calcium will help it better defend against the burns. I heard one speaker talk about how calcium products help. But the stuff he uses are commercial grower products and I didn't write them down. I'll add gypsum and grind up egg shells and hope it helps.

This just means our mangoes will do better!

[JF]

We hit 101F 5% humidity today these heatwaves have been punishing my anonnas for the last 5 month. I'm not as bad as Behl or Fang I have just enough for the family.

[JF]

Simon
These early Campus cherimoyas are as good as any mid or late with brix 27





The only fruit that comes close to a top tier cherimoya is Sweet tart and we have a few left to compare

Sweet Tart brix 28

[socal10b]

Very nice cherimoyas simon, your tree looks like fully loaded. Is the first pic pierce? Thanks.

[fyliu]

I wonder if the Jan 20, 2017 cherimoya tasting is still on. I hope those trees are doing well.

[simon_grow]

Frank, your fruit looks amazing as usual. I remember really liking Campas last time I tasted it. I think I may have over pollinated some of my Cherimoyas as some of my El Bumpos have too many seeds. I like Dr White, I know a lot of people don't like it, because it has excellent flesh to seed ratio. Those avocados will make an excellent avocado smoothie!

Socal10b

I believe the first pic is Booth but the tree is a bit overgrown and I need to cut it back to find the tag.

Fang, I hope the 2017 tasting is still on.

Simon

[JF]

Frank, your fruit looks amazing as usual. I remember really liking Campas last time I tasted it. I think I may have over pollinated some of my Cherimoyas as some of my El Bumpos have too many seeds. I like Dr White, I know a lot of people don't like it, because it has excellent flesh to seed ratio. Those avocados will make an excellent avocado smoothie!

Socal10b

I believe the first pic is Booth but the tree is a bit overgrown and I need to cut it back to find the tag.

Fang, I hope the 2017 tasting is still on.

Simon

Thanks Simon , glad you are doing better. The West Indian cados will be ready by Christmas. Bad years for anonas my sugar Apple have been horrible some atemoyas are close to ripening. I'm looking forward to winter the moyas should improve....can wait to have Rudy Lemon & Grape

Here is Genova red ilama only 2 fruits

[knlim000]

Frank, your fruit looks amazing as usual. I remember really liking Campas last time I tasted it. I think I may have over pollinated some of my Cherimoyas as some of my El Bumpos have too many seeds. I like Dr White, I know a lot of people don't like it, because it has excellent flesh to seed ratio. Those avocados will make an excellent avocado smoothie!

Simon

How does pollination have an effect on the number of seeds? Simon

[simon_grow]

Frank, your fruit looks amazing as usual. I remember really liking Campas last time I tasted it. I think I may have over pollinated some of my Cherimoyas as some of my El Bumpos have too many seeds. I like Dr White, I know a lot of people don't like it, because it has excellent flesh to seed ratio. Those avocados will make an excellent avocado smoothie!

Simon

How does pollination have an effect on the number of seeds? Simon

If you over pollinate a flower in the female receptive stage for example going in multiple times, maybe once in the morning and then again in the evening, you endure better pollination and potentially larger fruit but at the expense of more seeds.

I personally don't tag my flowers after pollination so I'm sure I pollinate more than necessary.

Simon

[Johnny Eat Fruit]

Very nice Cherimoyas Simon. I have two trees that have been the the ground two years so maybe a small amount of fruit next year.

Also what is the best time to graft Cherimoyas and do you use para-film and wrap the scion like mangos? I tried two grafts in July and both failed.

Thanks

Johnny

[fyliu]

July or any time of the year should work unless there's a heat wave right after. Yes, parafilm the whole scion and tie with grafting tape. I get the green one from 99cent stores. It's fairly easy to graft. Just try it again and maybe do it over 2 weeks just in case they get burned dead the first time.

[simon_grow]

Hey Johnny, I agree with fyliu. I personally prefer collecting scions when the trees naturally go dormant and I like to graft onto the rootstocks whenever the rootstocks begin pushing new growth. This varies from year to year and from county to county.

Other members have learned that you can green graft and graft almost any time of the year by first stripping leaves, waiting and then grafting. Leaf stripping at the proper time can also give you two crops a year.

Simon

[knlim000]

well, why not graft one branch per month so that can you an idea when the best time to graft.  That's what I'm planing to do with my trees. I got about 20 of started from seedling about 5-7yrs ago. And some are just starting to fruit this year.

I don't know what annona they are as these were store bought and started from their seed.  At first, when it was a baby, it looked so much like sugarapple, I think I might have pollinated it with a cherimoya or something because it look different as it gets bigger. This tree is in 3gal pot, with 3 fruits. I will plant it into the ground next year.









This is a different tree, it's in the ground. The leaves are super big.