How do I know when Sapodilla is ready to harvest

[Sam]

I have a seedling sapodilla tree that's bearing for the first time and it has a few fruits. How do I know when they are ready to harvest?

[kalan]

Scratch the skin with a finger nail. If it's green, its not ripe; Brown is ripe. ALso should come off the stem easily when perfectly rip and have very little white latex appear when picked.

Generally speaking, sapodilla ALWAYS hand on that damned tree longer than you think they will. I swear that some of mine have been ripening since 2015...

Keith

[FMfruitforest]

Pick when soft to touch or when the skin goes from rough to smooth and let sit until soft.

[johnb51]

It seems that I rarely could find a ripe one on the tree.  I just picked them up when they fell to the ground, but then they were usually a little bruised.  That's how it was with my sapodilla even though it produced massive amounts of delicious fruit.  It was next to the street, but no one ever stole them (except the squirrels) because they didn't know what the hell they were!

[achetadomestica]

I have a seedling sapodilla tree that's bearing for the first time and it has a few fruits. How do I know when they are ready to harvest?

How old is your seedling that is fruiting?
I have never done well with the scratch test? The skin does have a different
texture and color when they are ripe also. When they are ripe the skin is smoother.

[palmcity]

If a small tree I use to scratch mine and as soon as I saw a change in color I would pick and put in a bag in a warm place to ripen.

I now just wait till they fall as the tree is bigger and it's such a pain to try to scratch a lot of them day after day.

In another thread I believe Zands said he shakes his sapodilla tree to see which want to drop. My tree limbs are brittle and thus I have not tried this method as I guess it varies with varieties on limb strength to support fruit before breaking/splitting.

I visit my sapodilla tree in the morning and at dusk looking for drops. It's a race to pick up the sapodilla before the rodents. I give my rats & other rodents my yellow halloween candy from a witch with a big wort on her nose and a big black hat. She says this will make the rodents become invisible. 

[Sam]

I have a seedling sapodilla tree that's bearing for the first time and it has a few fruits. How do I know when they are ready to harvest?

How old is your seedling that is fruiting?
I have never done well with the scratch test? The skin does have a different
texture and color when they are ripe also. When they are ripe the skin is smoother.

My tree is roughly 7 years now..... it only has a handful of fruit at this time.....

[pinkturtle]

I have a seedling sapodilla tree that's bearing for the first time and it has a few fruits. How do I know when they are ready to harvest?

How old is your seedling that is fruiting?
I have never done well with the scratch test? The skin does have a different
texture and color when they are ripe also. When they are ripe the skin is smoother.

My tree is roughly 7 years now..... it only has a handful of fruit at this time.....

Wow, only 7 year from seedling to bearing friut.  Luck you...
 My in law have two seedlings and took them over 10 years start bear fruit.  They almost end up get rid of them, they saw flowers when they were cutting down the branches.

[Sam]

There are exactly 5 fruits.....

[achetadomestica]

The first sapodilla I ate were from a seedling tree and were gritty.
Now all the grafted trees I have the fruit is so smooth, I miss the grit?

[TnTrobbie]

I like the grit as well. gives the mouth feel of tiny sugar crystals . I've had good results when picked with yellow flesh after a skin scrape test then allowed to counter top ripen.

[rtconner]

If they are low enough you can grab and feel them, and you are not worried about animals ... then the best thing is wait till they are a little soft. The scratch the skin trick works too, I just hate scratching my fruits.

If you have a super huge tree like me, then you need other tricks. I try to eyeball the size, but that is not reliable. Sometimes small ones are ripe and something big ones are not ripe. Sometimes I shake the branches too see if they will just fall on their own. Sometimes I give the fruit a light tug with a picker, if it comes off with a light tug, then it probably was ripe enough.

And sometimes I just get it plain wrong, and oh well I picked an unripe Sapodilla

[palmcity]

And sometimes I just get it plain wrong, and oh well I picked an unripe Sapodilla

I decided to try scratching etc. again due to reading the thread... And now I have this sticky white latex sap on my hands after gushing out of an unripe sapodilla... lol... Now I remember why I like waiting...

4.7.20  I just ate another that had dropped on a stick yesterday. The area poked had already become hard and tasted worse than the other 7/8 of the fruit. This same hardening occurs when scratched and taste worse also. So it's a trade off as to what to do. If they drop and are ripe & soft, I wait no longer than 1 day to eat them as they tend to degrade quickly in taste as they are so softer & harmed by the drop much more than mango and they become hard spots in the fruit rapidly after the fall.

[gnappi]

On my makok my indicators are, Press into to break the skin lightly with my thumbnail if it bleeds a bit of latex, it's not ready. Also if a light squeeze yields a bit I pluck it. I've also just shake the tree and eat those that fall, but these are usually a bit over ripe but they are too high to test without a ladder.

The fingernail scratch doesn't do well for me. They go from green to yellow and still bleed latex and are still astringent and not edible.

[palmcity]

On my makok my indicators are, Press into to break the skin lightly with my thumbnail if it bleeds a bit of latex, it's not ready. Also if a light squeeze yields a bit I pluck it. I've also just shake the tree and eat those that fall, but these are usually a bit over ripe but they are too high to test without a ladder.

The fingernail scratch doesn't do well for me. They go from green to yellow and still bleed latex and are still astringent and not edible.

I used the nail of the index finger pressing it into the side of a hasya sapodilla. On the first sapodilla it did not indent. The second sapodilla did indent and I pulled it off. I was happy to see no latex spurting out of the top of the sapodilla or from the stem left on the tree... So 1 for 1 on ripeness test using the nail so far... yea... Thanks. So far, I like it better than scratching as so simple & quick and I don't think I damaged the one that the nail did not sink into..... Thanks....

https://www.simplybodylanguage.com/finger-names.html

Now 2 for 2 as I found another and picked it without latex coming out.

If you need to know how hard to push your nail, find one that you know is ripe in the house and push your nail into the side of it to give you an idea of the amount of pressure to push the nail into the fruit while outside.