The Tropical Fruit Forum

My dad has about 10 fairly large trifolate orange trees at his farm in South Carolina.  They're about 8'-10' tall and their trunks are about 3-4" thick.  What's the best way to graft a different variety to them and when should I do it?

I am moving to Puerto Rico in a couple weeks.  Can I ship plants without soil to Puerto Rico? 

I have a few small Mexican Mangosteens, Soursop, and Rollinias, a 3-4 ft Dream tree, and a few other things I would like to take to Puerto Rico with me, but I'm not sure the best way to take them.  Maybe ship in a box with the roots bagged in moist sphagnum moss?  Not sure if it's allowed or not.  The only thing I saw was no plants with soil.

Any suggestions?

My son pulled all the tags off my pineapple plants.  Now I don't know what's what.

I originally ordered several Elite Gold, Smooth Cayenne, White Jade, Sugarloaf and Florida Special.  I also picked up a Red Spanish on ebay.  I lost quite a few when they were small TC starts, maybe all of the elite gold.  I'm not sure now.

I have two like this.  Light green with red streaks.  No spines.


I think this was either Smooth Cayenne or Florida Special.  Medium spines on leaves, medium green, whitish flowers, lots of offsets.  I have four like this all fruiting now.


I have two like this.  Smaller plants with smooth solid green leaves.  Maybe Sugarloaf or White Jade?


Larger plant, smooth deep green leaves.  Sugarloaf or White Jade?  It seems like the Sugarloafs grew faster than the White Jades, so maybe this one is Sugarloaf and the two small ones are WJ?


Supposedly Red Spanish getting ready to flower.  Lots of red, very spiny.





Any help is appreciated.

I'm not sure of the types, so let me know if you recognize them.
I was just surprised to see so many coconuts in Sarasota.  A few even had fruit on them.  These were all on Siesta Key, but I've seen quite a few around town close to the water.



This one had an orange trunk that looked different than the others.  The coloring didn't show up very well in this picture.  Any idea what variety?





These two looked like they had something wrong with them.

Fiji dwarf?

My neighbor's big "ligustrums" have grapefruit!   . It's extremely rare to see anyone else around here with citrus trees planted outside, especially this size and unprotected in a zone 8a/b border area.  In fact, no one I know of has in-ground citrus around here.  The trees are pretty large with trunks probably 7" across.  I'm just amazed I've never noticed them before and that they survive unprotected. 

Has anybody had success rooting cuttings of Garcinias? 

I have a bunch of cuttings of Luc's garcinia, but they are much bigger than my seedling rootstock.  How difficult are they to root?

Three small avocado trees near each other all have small pinholes in the bark and two of the three have white stuff around the hole.  Is it laurel wilt?  One of the trees looked bad - darkened trunk and branches with leaves drooping.  A couple of days later, all the leaves turned brown above the graft and most of the trunk is black.

Let me know what you think. 

Does anyone know when and where to get pawpaw fruits?  I'd like to try some before I invest the time and space for a few trees.  I would like to find a place that has a few different named varieties if I can.

I've seen a few posts from Australia saying it is everbearing, sweet, and much better than Sao Manilla, etc.

Do you guys have any info on Krasuey's Sapodilla?  Anybody have it?



-Sonny

Second time this has happened.  I've had another container lychee tree suddenly drop most of it's leaves.  What might it be?  It seemed happy before, but I went out of town and came back to find most of the leaves brown.  It rained quite a bit while we were gone and the tree had been in almost full sun, but so had another lychee that still looks great.  Pot was painted white.

I haven't fertilized them so it's not from over-fertilizing.  Too much water?  Too much sun?  What do Lychees hate?

Maybe this one is obvious to you guys.  This fruit is on a vine planted near a pool in the Keys.  Looks like a hybrid apple-plum-mango fruit on the outside.  And while that would be cool, obviously that's not what it is.  The vine looks grafted.  The fruit does not look edible.  When I cut one open, the inside was white and had the feel of a nerf foam ball.  Not sure if it was ripe or not.

So, what is it?

 
I'm new at Annona growing (I know.  Please, don't ban me from the forums!  ).  How should I prune  my small Dream trees?