The Tropical Fruit Forum

Mmmm Woopen Creek is that Blair? Anyway Woopen Creek averages right on 4000mm/yr and Ravenshoe almost on the same latitude is a comparative dustbowl with around 1400mm/yr average and its at 920m (3000ft) altitude. Comparing apples with oranges with mango varieties and the choices for Woopen Creek are limited.
I remember the white fleshed indica from Kamerunga and it was next to the carpark. Cairns City Council were eager to get rid of it and in fact anything rare or odd. It was 1994 they chopped it down I believe but there are still a few mangoes of unknown types on the property. The flesh wasn't really white and it didn't strike me as something special unlike say the row of various varieties of pulasan.

I see mamea and cannonball trees around town and in one part they are planted near each other. I never thought about it but yes young trees and the fruit look alike. Cannonballs are not edible btw. Cannonballs gave the fruit on the lower trunk on a tangle of stalks but they can creep up on to branches and higher on the trunk. Mammea americana has smaller leaves with fruit on branches and towards terminal areas more. I am in the abrigato camp.

Great stuff and it is good to see such experimentation with avos. If Florida and Hawaii are the ferrari's of avocadoes Australia is a rickety skateboard with only a handful of cold loving Guatemalans on offer.

Great looking fruit that and way bigger than the standard.

The brazilian macrophylla is nowhere near as good or big fruited. South east Asian species generally are not as cold hardy as South American species from the same latitude. Trying to figure if American Garcinias are dioecious or monoecious or both within a species and what the sex ratios are seems to be like trying to rope the wind.

There are number of glamorous lychee varieties in Australia that appear not to have made it to the US yet. Maybe you guys aren't ready for them yet and are still going through your sweetheart and hak ip phase. An out of sequence lychee might be very disruptive.

Yes get Golden Queen from Trina and it fruits 2 months later than most. Cedar bay/Rabaul does pretty well in the wet tropics. Keow sawoy does alright as well.Honey gold likes it a bit drier and cooler.

Did you know Bangkok is the only city named after a terrible accident?

Customs in Australia are a bit of a cowboy outfit and take liberties with the laws and their interpretations. They go on seizure benders and regardless of whether the rules are followed may seize and destroy without any appeal process. They can decide randomly that any packing material is soil or that the absence of a phyto certificate is grounds for destruction.All well and good for an iron fist with biosecurity if there is consistency.
While mail really hasn't been shown as a source of pests the ports are a different tale. Fire ants, yellow crazy ants, papaya fruit flies, asian honey bees and a thousand other pests stream in through Australian ports. State governments actually encourage the use of some of the world's worst weeds like buffel grass and leucaena. There just is no coherent, sober or coordinated approach to biosecurity.

Keladangs germinate pretty easily and are not a hard one to get. Not many people seem to grow Willughbeias around here and I didn't have any luck germinating seeds

This precocious seedling thing is really interesting and I wonder if it is genetic. So often you hear of that one rogue seedling that flowers and fruits way sooner than is usual for the species whether avocadoes, jackfruit, durian, mangosteen or an Annona.

No question that mycorrhizae and symbiotic root fungi is vitally important for nutrient uptake and there a many species and specialist associations. My scepticism was regarding the ability of systems and specific plants to unlock meaningful volumes of plant nutrients in existing minerals and even rock flour it its added. You need to be careful with fodder plants which are frequently serious weeds. Buffel, Brachiara and leucaena are bad news in many areas. Mowing once a year? I have to strain the mower through 12 inch wet shagpile like dense grass every fortnight.