Author Topic: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan  (Read 6402 times)

LEOOEL

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I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« on: November 25, 2013, 10:00:47 PM »
I didn't get longan fruit this year from my 'Kohala' longan tree, very dissappointing. So, I've made up my mind, it's 'Diamond-River' longan to the rescue, I can't wait to get it.

After doing some research, I've learned that 'Diamond-River' produces fruit every year, on the clock, regardless of whether there was enough winter cold in the previous year or not. But, the longan fruit quality of the 'Diamond-River' is somewhat inferior to 'Sri-Chompoo' and 'Biew-Kiew.' My plan to get around some of this problem is to cull about 25% of the inferior fruitlings and let the rest develop to a large, enjoyable, tasty, size.

If I'm not mistaken, the 'Diamond-River' may also be susceptible to wind. I've already selected a spot on the yard where it'll get some wind protection yet have adequate sun. I sure hope, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed, that everything turns out well, and that the tree does not develop into an ugly/hellish looking situation. Perhaps with proper care and maintenance, 'this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship (Casablanca).'
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HMHausman

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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2013, 10:18:25 PM »
I believe we have had the Diamond River longan discussion with one of our members extolling its virtues.  When I first encountered it back in the 1990's they were calling it Phetsakon or Petchsakorn....something like that. Everyone, including me, had to have one, or two.  It is subject to wind damage and whole large branches succumbed to typical summer time thunderstorms here in Florida.  The big selling points that I remember were that it could produce multiple crops....or at least it did so in Thailand.  It also produced around the time of Chinese New Year, which is a big deal if you are trying to market longans. They were supposed to be more tropical than the others but I had never had a problem with regular longan fruiting until this last year.

Although I didn't care for the fruit that my trees produced, it may very well be the best longan available to you at the time it bears. Good luck with your quest for your new acquisition. Of course, you are required to update your Diamond River experience once you are a seasoned Diamod River Longan fruiter.
Harry
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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2013, 11:26:32 PM »
diamond river is decent...my only complaints...the fruits are small, juice spills from shell when you open the fruit, and the flesh seems to cling to the seed.

it's definitely great to have fruit when no other longans are available...it makes them taste that much better.
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fruitlovers

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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #3 on: November 25, 2013, 11:31:44 PM »
diamond river is decent...my only complaints...the fruits are small, juice spills from shell when you open the fruit, and the flesh seems to cling to the seed.

it's definitely great to have fruit when no other longans are available...it makes them taste that much better.

Yes the fruits are smaller, the juice spills, and it is more clingy. Yet better to have small longans than no longans at all! And Diamond River is very sweet. Growing sub tropical fruits in a tropical climate is dicey. Diamond river is one of the few tropical longans. Another tropical one to try is Ping Pong. That one as the name suggest has much bigger fruits, but is hard to find.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2013, 11:33:42 PM by fruitlovers »
Oscar

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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #4 on: November 26, 2013, 07:35:40 AM »
Diamond river is one of the few tropical longans. Another tropical one to try is Ping Pong. That one as the name suggest has much bigger fruits, but is hard to find.
I had the opportunity to try Ping Pong in Puerto Rico at Ian Crown's place. The fruit was much larger than Diamond River and was, in my opinion, far superior in flavor.  I can't comment on its tropical nature or fruitfulness except to say that it was doing well at Ian's, when more traditional, cooler preferring types were not providing fruit.  So I agree.......if you can find Ping Pong, give it a try over Diamond River.
Harry
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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #5 on: November 26, 2013, 07:12:43 PM »
I think longan, like lychee, wants to get some age on it before it starts to fruit well / regularly. I don't know how old your non-fruiting longan tree is, but if it's been in the ground for less than, say, 4 years, I wouldn't really expect to see much in the way of fruit.

In some years, the diamond river can get a weird mediciny flavor.  Not sure how to describe it. I'd probably rather try my luck with kohala unless I had a bunch of extra space to be planted out.
Jeff  :-)

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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #6 on: November 26, 2013, 07:24:16 PM »
Does the diamond river have very thin and soft shell?

LEOOEL

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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #7 on: November 27, 2013, 09:23:25 AM »
Thanks Oscar for the 'Ping Pong' longan recommendation, I'll look into it. Although, I don't think it has that 'Diamond-River' attitude/characteristic of 'I don't care what the cold weather temperature was, I'm gonna give you longan fruit no matter what.'

I'm aware that the 'Diamond-River' is smaller in size than the 'Sri-Chompoo' and 'Biew-Kiew,' but I would tend to believe that by thinning out about one third of the fruit, this would increase the size of the remaining fruit to an acceptable size, or maybe not?

Jeff, the Kohala has been producing fruit for several years now. Maybe it's just taking a break? If it is ginving me this attitude, I'm not really OK with it. I get the same treatment from my 'Brewster' lychee and to a lesser degree, also from my 'Edward' low production mango, which I have to share with the zombie/plage squirrels; just the other day, one of these squirrels got in front of my face on a branch and started squirrel-screaming at me, maybe it's a reaction to me immitating their sounds/noises some time back, but I digress, this is another story.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2013, 10:15:24 PM by LEOOEL »
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LEOOEL

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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #8 on: November 27, 2013, 10:18:49 PM »
Of course, you are required to update your Diamond River experience once you are a seasoned Diamod River Longan fruiter.

You got it, I just hope that thinning the fruit produces the desired result of bigger fruit.
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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #9 on: November 28, 2013, 01:29:48 AM »
Thanks Oscar for the 'Ping Pong' longan recommendation, I'll look into it. Although, I don't think it has that 'Diamond-River' attitude/characteristic of 'I don't care what the cold weather temperature was, I'm gonna give you longan fruit no matter what.'

I'm aware that the 'Diamond-River' is smaller in size than the 'Sri-Chompoo' and 'Biew-Kiew,' but I would tend to believe that by thinning out about one third of the fruit, this would increase the size of the remaining fruit to an acceptable size, or maybe not?

Jeff, the Kohala has been producing fruit for several years now. Maybe it's just taking a break? If it is ginving me this attitude, I'm not really OK with it. I get the same treatment from my 'Brewster' lychee and to a lesser degree, also from my 'Edward' low production mango, which I have to share with the zombie/plage squirrels; just the other day, one of these squirrels got in front of my face on a branch and started squirrel-screaming at me, maybe it's a reaction to me immitating their sounds/noises some time back, but I digress, this is another story.

I think you didn't read my message carefully. Ping Pong is a tropical longan = 'I don't care what the cold weather temperature was, I'm gonna give you longan fruit no matter what.'
Oscar

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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #10 on: November 28, 2013, 10:48:53 PM »
Thanks Oscar for the 'Ping Pong' longan recommendation, I'll look into it. Although, I don't think it has that 'Diamond-River' attitude/characteristic of 'I don't care what the cold weather temperature was, I'm gonna give you longan fruit no matter what.'

I'm aware that the 'Diamond-River' is smaller in size than the 'Sri-Chompoo' and 'Biew-Kiew,' but I would tend to believe that by thinning out about one third of the fruit, this would increase the size of the remaining fruit to an acceptable size, or maybe not?

Jeff, the Kohala has been producing fruit for several years now. Maybe it's just taking a break? If it is ginving me this attitude, I'm not really OK with it. I get the same treatment from my 'Brewster' lychee and to a lesser degree, also from my 'Edward' low production mango, which I have to share with the zombie/plage squirrels; just the other day, one of these squirrels got in front of my face on a branch and started squirrel-screaming at me, maybe it's a reaction to me immitating their sounds/noises some time back, but I digress, this is another story.

I think you didn't read my message carefully. Ping Pong is a tropical longan = 'I don't care what the cold weather temperature was, I'm gonna give you longan fruit no matter what.'

Got it, thanks, now that is what I call a lead. In other words, what you're saying is that 'Ping-Pong' is the competition that has 'Diamond-River' beat. 'Ping-Pong' will reliably give me large fruit year after year, this is news to me. I'm definitely gonna check out the 'Ping-Pong' longan and let you know what I find, very impressive information, you're definitely a fruit master, many thanks.
'Virtue' should be taught, learned and propagated, in order to save others and oneself.

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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #11 on: November 29, 2013, 03:26:13 AM »
Thanks Oscar for the 'Ping Pong' longan recommendation, I'll look into it. Although, I don't think it has that 'Diamond-River' attitude/characteristic of 'I don't care what the cold weather temperature was, I'm gonna give you longan fruit no matter what.'

I'm aware that the 'Diamond-River' is smaller in size than the 'Sri-Chompoo' and 'Biew-Kiew,' but I would tend to believe that by thinning out about one third of the fruit, this would increase the size of the remaining fruit to an acceptable size, or maybe not?

Jeff, the Kohala has been producing fruit for several years now. Maybe it's just taking a break? If it is ginving me this attitude, I'm not really OK with it. I get the same treatment from my 'Brewster' lychee and to a lesser degree, also from my 'Edward' low production mango, which I have to share with the zombie/plage squirrels; just the other day, one of these squirrels got in front of my face on a branch and started squirrel-screaming at me, maybe it's a reaction to me immitating their sounds/noises some time back, but I digress, this is another story.

I think you didn't read my message carefully. Ping Pong is a tropical longan = 'I don't care what the cold weather temperature was, I'm gonna give you longan fruit no matter what.'

Got it, thanks, now that is what I call a lead. In other words, what you're saying is that 'Ping-Pong' is the competition that has 'Diamond-River' beat. 'Ping-Pong' will reliably give me large fruit year after year, this is news to me. I'm definitely gonna check out the 'Ping-Pong' longan and let you know what I find, very impressive information, you're definitely a fruit master, many thanks.

What i'm saying is that Ping Pong could be the competition that has Diamond River beat. I don't think Ping Pong has been tried yet in Florida, so hard to say how well it would produce there given the climate/soil. I tasted Ping Pong a very long time ago in Thailand so my memory of it's taste is very faded. But i trust Harry when he says he thinks it's taste is far superior to Diamond River. Now the challenge is to find a start of this plant. Harry also gives a clue there as he had it in PR. See his posting above in this thread.
Oscar

LEOOEL

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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #12 on: November 30, 2013, 12:05:54 AM »
Thanks a lot Mike! Now I also want this cultivar  :-\

 ;) ;D

If it's what i think it is: Ping pong, it's best for tropical areas, not sub tropics.

http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=1518.0

I'd love to find out how 'Ping Pong' longan does here in South Florida, USA, but it seems that it's not here yet, so we'll have to wait until some nursery or someone brings it in and field tests. In my opinion, this is the only way to truly find out how 'Ping Pong' longan performs here, in S. Florida.
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bangkok

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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #13 on: November 30, 2013, 09:23:24 AM »
Leo if you can't find Ping Pong then let me know and i can look for seeds from here. I just ate a bunch of diamond rivers and they were nice but now i also want to taste ping pong myself.

I read somewhere that you are the dragonfruit-expert so maybe we can do a seedswap. The problem is they call them different in Thailand and that can even change by province.

I found this pic and they are big



« Last Edit: November 30, 2013, 09:35:15 AM by bangkok »

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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #14 on: November 30, 2013, 09:23:00 PM »
Unfortunately, longans do not grow true to seed.  You have to get material to graft with or an air layer.
Harry
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LEOOEL

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Re: I Want Longan Every Year, So I'm Getting 'Diamond River' Longan
« Reply #15 on: December 01, 2013, 12:33:12 PM »
Bangkok, as Harry said, Longan is not true to seed, but thanks for offering. Before I knew about the quality characteristics of 'Ping Pong' longan, I'm quite sure I saw it advertised for sale, on-line, in the USA. Now, I'm trying to desperately locate/find that source again.

BTW, I'm desperately trying to get my 'David Bowie' dragon fruit to bear fruit, so no fruit yet. But, I'm glad to report that the cactus is growing and doing wonderfuly.

I look forward to the day when we can trade/exchange seeds, take care.
'Virtue' should be taught, learned and propagated, in order to save others and oneself.