The Tropical Fruit Forum

Good information, Millet!

It is not likely that you will stop the vectors for the bacteria to tree interface. Some disagree with me, but I think time will prove me correct.  I do not think stiopping the bugs is realistic.

Quote from: Millet on October 30, 2015, 10:38:57 PM

No matter what you do, a young 4 year old container grapefruit tree will not produce all that quality of a fruit.  It is just too young.  However, with grapefruit, most authorities say to leave the fruit hang on the tree until March for the best tasting fruit. The commercial grapefruit industry picks their fruit as soon as possible to get the fruit on the market so they can receive payment.  If they would delay the harvest until March, many more people would like grapefruit than do now. - Millet

Not all grapefruit is handled that way.  Different types/varieties ripen at different times.  The reds are later in the season, or into mid to late spring of the following year while the whites are earlier in the season (weather plays a bigger role in quality with any citrus, you need to have the cold spells to sweeten them up and improve the quality ).  I have never seen any benefit of leaving some of the early season whites hang on the tree for months.  No matter how long you let a white stay on the tree, it will never have the characteristics of a good red.  Then there is the matter of personal preference,  some like whites better and some like reds better.

My Rio Red are pretty tasty in early April though they taste pretty good as early as late February.  I've taken the last fruit off the tree as late as early June and it was still good.

For a parting note: here is a link to a short video and article to show how some let greed and politics stop the solution.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/i-team-investigates/scientists-claim-tests-unnecessarily-delayed-in-quest-for-citrus-greening-disease-cure

I have had what appears to be a cure for a couple of years now.  The trees can reinfect after a couple of years if you do not preventatively treat the trees annually thereafter, but you can re-cure the tree if it gets sick again. You can give it to healthy trees and they seem to resist sickness and leaf miners.  It is a root adjuvant drench with non-toxic agents which lets the plant take up nutrients more easily while helping it kill off the bacteria. I won't be more definitive because it works in my Texas soil, but I cannot say what would happen in other soils besides my heavy clay.

The adjuvant solution has cured fire blight in a couple of fruit trees and I suspect it would also work against the bacterial olive blight affecting Europe.  My next planned test however is fig mosaic virus.  The adjuvant has never been tested against an incurable virus, so I am quite curious.  I now have two infected fig trees to work with, one a mission fig, and the other a Celeste. If I'm still kicking, I will test once Spring comes around.

I have something that is relatively cheap and easy to make, but politicians are giving tens of millions of dollars to a select few universities to do research on genetic splicing, root grafting, and predatory wasps as possible solutions.  Sounds like an expensive solution just to let people not lose a portion of their food supply.

Frankly I am pretty disgusted at the agriculture industry right now.  It all is about big business and making big money, but while politicians and researchers fiddle, the trees die and burn.

Cancer research has collected research money for decades without a guaranteed cure.  Is greening to become the new research cash cow?  They will spend such a sum on something like this?  Incredible!

Is the Changsha high quality?  Few seeds, great taste, good acid/sugar balance?

I have an Arctic Frost sat which is a very cold hardy satuma/changsha hybrid.  It's supposed to be excellent.  Hope to find out later this year.

I hope those work out for you.  I have a Miho sat which makes the most excellent sweet fruit.  It's like candy only better.  Long live the sats!

Are you going to share your method with us?

I posted to let the fine folks here know that it is not impossible.  There will be a time when the best solutions become known.  In the meantime consider the below.

Each university is getting several million dollars to research.  Each one will have a theory that will limit their field of vision.  If any of them finds anything they will patent it if the grant allows them to do so.  Which of them do you think would like to give up their research money for an already existing product?  None I am betting.  Realistically, it takes about 10 million for me to lock up the production science for two key ingredients which I have bought previously, but may see them go private if the Chinese complete a purchase of the manufacturer for their own purposes.  There may be a work-around, but I have not researched that yet.  Other ingredients are more common, and I don't worry about their availability.  I have stocked enough ingredients for my own needs plus future reseach and initial sales if needed.  I have two formulas and several packaging concentrations including solid and liquid soluble forms.

 I started a patent, but realized that no one will duplicate my formula without me putting it out into the patent office for all foreign agents to read and copy, so I will not complete the patent for others to steal.  I will wait and see how the wind blows. When the industry becomes desperate enough to look beyond the universities, they will find me ready to work with the trees while reducing the needed percentage of npk. 

I'm in one of the new quarantine areas, but my trees are good.  My own solution works FROM the roots.  Universities in California, Florida, and Kansas have been given multi-million dollar grants to study citrus greening for possible solutions.
 http://yoho.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/university-of-florida-receives-4-out-of-7-grants-by-the-usda

These folks are looking at dna splicing, root grafting, and other exotic fixes.   My treatment appears to work just fine, and is relatively inexpensive to make so we shall see if there is any interest in researching cheap vs expensive treatments (everyone raves at the quality of the fruit).  As an aside, because of the way it works, my treatment also may help againt fire blight and fig mosaic, but I honestly have not had time to test there.

PS:  It also may well help the olive trees. http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/03/24/olive_tree_blight_xylella_fastidiosa_is_threatening_millions_of_groves_in.html

Seems there may be even more at stake:

Xylella is an exotic pathogen common in the Americas and the Middle East, which is thought to have been brought to Europe by infected insects carried with plant commodities, or travelling as stowaways.

“There seems to be a link between the changing patterns of global trade and the spread of this disease,” Stancanelli said.

Once established, the bacteria spreads via fluid-feeding insects and its varying strains have a notoriously large alternative host plant range, affecting oak, sycamore, citrus, cherry, almond, grapefruit, peach, oleander and forest trees.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/08/europes-olive-trees-threatened-spread-deadly-bacteria

Cooking with them is a great idea.  Thanks for bringing that up!

So that's your trick!   

Acute liver damage?  Wonderful...  just bury it in the fine print like the medical folks do with new drugs.  I myself may have something that I think may do the job and is organic based, but I did it as a one off since the formula is so different from what I have done before and I didn't want any left over if things went wrong.  Things went spooky, but right so I will make another small batch and try it on an FMV infected fig tree.  If I get the same positive results I saw in sick citrus, then I may contact the state lab and let them try it in their south Texas facility.  If I was younger, I might be pursuing research money like the other guys, but I am retired and bored, so that is my powerful motivator rather than money.  If things work out, good for us, we will tell a tale.  Maybe it will be better than a fishing story.  If not, at least a few days were not boring.