The Tropical Fruit Forum
Tropical Fruit => Tropical Fruit Discussion => Topic started by: Kona fruit farm on May 18, 2019, 02:32:26 AM
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I have a nice healthy grafted "selma" cherimoya tree in my yard... all my atemoyays are flowering like crazy, but not the cherimoya. Im thinking its probably not cold enough. I'm in Kona side of the big island of hawaii at 1700-1800 feet. it does get a little chilly here.. but maybe not enough..
Is there a specific fertilizer or chemical treatment i can do that will induce flowering? or hurting the tree? Help! i want fruit!
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Hi Jeff,
I hope you are doing good my friend. I would try pruning it back. Tip the ends and strip the leaves off. You don't have to do the entire tree. The usually induces flowering and you can control and spread out your crop by using hand pollination. If the leaves are really stuck on a you are doing damage to the tree you can just cut at the petioles and they will fall off shortly.
BTW, I have my first fruit set on my Rollinia tree that came from your seed of that 7.5 lb monster a while back.
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Do you get any chill hours? I think cherimoyas need some minor chill time maybe 100+ hrs
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I have a nice healthy grafted "selma" cherimoya tree in my yard... all my atemoyays are flowering like crazy, but not the cherimoya. Im thinking its probably not cold enough. I'm in Kona side of the big island of hawaii at 1700-1800 feet. it does get a little chilly here.. but maybe not enough..
Is there a specific fertilizer or chemical treatment i can do that will induce flowering? or hurting the tree? Help! i want fruit!
Is your Selma established for about 1-2 years? How thick are the branches? I’ve observed that thinner diameter wood from recently grafted trees or you g trees can sometimes take a breather before they flower. Also, I’ve noticed that some varieties consistently flower whereas other varieties only flower and set fruit on more mature wood like Dr White does in my yard.
Try giving your plant a minor package with Zinc, Iron, Manganese and Copper.
I believe Har mentioned in another thread that Zinc was very important but the other minors/trace are important as well.
Simon
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There's an Indian research paper on sugar apples and flowering.
The conclusion was zinc, iron and boron in foliar application was best for flowering.
If I find the link I'll post it again.
But it's somewhere on the forum too
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thanks guys.. its definitely a nice healthy mature tree... with branches plenty thick to support fruit.. probably a 5 year old tree. i'll try the zinc and other stuff see if it works..
i'll post a picture of the tree
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Id consider gibberellic acid for fruit set.http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810018430 (http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810018430)
Hrre they say that 1000 ppm gibberellic acid its better than hand polination and the fruits resulted are seedless but smaller and less tastyer than the fruits with seeds.1000 ppm its a big concentration thogh ,in the first link they used 25-50 ppm but for sugar apples not cherimola.https://books.google.ro/books?id=BYi_AOteP6wC&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=gibberellic+acid+cherimoya&source=bl&ots=AO-7NmPggT&sig=ACfU3U3TOKk73RiIWtCPo6QqhXa_Xb_xAA&hl=ro&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-t_CCy6biAhUow8QBHfW3BAE4ChDoATADegQIBBAB#v=onepage&q=gibberellic%20acid%20cherimoya&f=false (https://books.google.ro/books?id=BYi_AOteP6wC&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=gibberellic+acid+cherimoya&source=bl&ots=AO-7NmPggT&sig=ACfU3U3TOKk73RiIWtCPo6QqhXa_Xb_xAA&hl=ro&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-t_CCy6biAhUow8QBHfW3BAE4ChDoATADegQIBBAB#v=onepage&q=gibberellic%20acid%20cherimoya&f=false)
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I had a friend in California with many fruiting cherimoyas but she struggled to get Selma to produce. Perhaps this variety is just shy relative to others. Jeff, do you have any other Cherimoyas growing to compare?
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I have about 15 cherimoya varieties, most over 10 years old. All produce. None have started flowering yet. We get good chill hours (plums/apricots do well). This year has had strange weather and "normal" isn't. Awaiting the blooming to begin hand pollination. Cherimoyas have been ripening just in the past two weeks. Some avocados just started flowering, none are ripening yet.
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Do you get any chill hours? I think cherimoyas need some minor chill time maybe 100+ hrs
Jeff,
According to California Rare Fruit Grower's website, cherimoya requires about 50-100 hours of chilling hours; then I looked up your average yearly temp. for Kona, it shows a pretty much steady high 60F's to low 70F's for your night time lows... So, even at 1800ft elevation I don't think you could get to low 45F to reach the chill zone.
So, as yourself and Brad suspected, this could possibly be the reason of you having difficulty flowering cherimoya at your location. Good to know your atemoyas are doing well there, though... :)
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I have 2 El Bumpo sizing up on my tree here in Florida. I have a few other cherimoya varieties that I am pruning and hoping to push flowers. My Selma grafts didn't take so I can't comment on that. Seems like it is cultivar dependent and not species wide. Time will tell if I can get some more varieties to set or if I event get the El Bumpo to maturity. We had a very mild winter here this year. I have an out of zone breadfruit in ground with just minor burning and dieback.
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yeah its an interesting case study for sure about seeing how atemoyas perform here and cherimoyas won't... my lowest temp here is about 55 degree F. its actually hilarious as i write this that there are 1000's of posts on this forum with everyone trying to grow stuff wanting the higher temps and here i am wanting the low temps! haha
Is this why i don't hear about many of you california guys growing atemoya?? cause its too cold for atemoya there? sounds like cherimoya is prime in california tho.
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Cherimoya has an issue with high temperature. It won't flower.
How high is it at your place?
In SoCal atemoya fruits worth 2x as cherimoya.
I can't tell which is more grown here.
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yeah its an interesting case study for sure about seeing how atemoyas perform here and cherimoyas won't... my lowest temp here is about 55 degree F. its actually hilarious as i write this that there are 1000's of posts on this forum with everyone trying to grow stuff wanting the higher temps and here i am wanting the low temps! haha
Is this why i don't hear about many of you california guys growing atemoya?? cause its too cold for atemoya there? sounds like cherimoya is prime in california tho.
Atemoyas grow fine here too. Cherimoya tastes a lot better to me.
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yeah its an interesting case study for sure about seeing how atemoyas perform here and cherimoyas won't... my lowest temp here is about 55 degree F. its actually hilarious as i write this that there are 1000's of posts on this forum with everyone trying to grow stuff wanting the higher temps and here i am wanting the low temps! haha
Is this why i don't hear about many of you california guys growing atemoya?? cause its too cold for atemoya there? sounds like cherimoya is prime in california tho.
Atemoyas grow fine here too. Cherimoya tastes a lot better to me.
You guys can have some of my chill hours -_-
Can't wait till my cherimoyas are big enough to see how they do out here though!