Hi Garry,
Thanks for taking the time to share your experience growing sapodilla tree..., one of our favorite tropical fruit tree.
I've been searching/googling quite a bit about this tree, but the info I found is not as plentiful as like in mango, cherimoya...etc. So, any info that one can write in this open forum would be that much valuable to those seeking more info about this tree...now or for future generation growers...
One aspect that's intriguing to me, is the method of fertilization on this sap flowers. I have yet to see any bees hanging around my sap flowers, neither did I recall reading someone else actually saw bees pollinating their flowers...Please, correct me if my suspicion is not correct.
If my suspicion is correct, then other possibility how sap tree pollination can occur is by way of ANTS, -as one member recently mentioned- since most Florida members do not normally do hand pollination on their sap trees as far as I can tell...
If this is so, then this would probably explain why my 15G 8-10 feet tall tree I planted in 2015 only has a single fruit today... -and this I am convinced was by way of my own hand pollination effort- (as I mentioned before I don't see any ants in my yard).
Sorry, it's only my simple non scientific guestwork...
Lots of observations (accidental and purposeful) led to gigantic discoveries, aspirin and penicillin are two. :-)
I've said it before... given a choice of sapodilla, a sweet carambola or Mango, mango will be a close third :-) Sapodilla light up my taste buds like nothing else, carambola refresh me, and mango satisfy my sweet cravings. My GF will eat sapodilla over ANY other fruit. When I bring one to her house her face lights up so cute! She feels the same about carambola I do.
To draw bees in I went to garden centers and just watched bees and which perennials they alighted on and stayed there. I bought those and planted several under my eaves and against the walls of the house (wasted space otherwise) to attract them.
Anyway, I don't have a lot of bees one year, then lots another though I cannot say I have seen bees on my tree. I do have lots of ants though, but they swarm onto over ripe fruit if it falls to the ground but leave any fruit in the tree alone unless it's wounded and they will get in. Also house flies are common in my yard but I haven't seen them on my Makok either.
At this point I suspect the wind / breeze is at work, and there may be others like butterflies which I have seen lots of in my yard, and at night there may be night active insect eaters like lizards (they LOVE my Makok and are all over it day and night) which may be pollinating by accidental contact crawling over and through flowers? Also flying pollinators like bats and moths may go for the flowers, or incidentally due to my lighting?
My Makok is directly under a lit 24/7 orange fluorescent bulb that the lizards stay close to on the wall in order to get flying insects attracted to the "bug light" :-) Maybe the light is working for me in an unplanned fashion? Here's a crummy phone pic of my Makok