Author Topic: Moderately cold hardy fruits for greenhouse culture?  (Read 2263 times)

nintendere

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Moderately cold hardy fruits for greenhouse culture?
« on: December 18, 2018, 11:45:55 AM »
Hello there,

I've been contemplating building a greenhouse the upcoming spring, measuring around 150 sqft. I'm living in zone 7b/8a, so my plan would be to keep the temperature in the greenhouse at least at 25-30 °F. This would be give me a chance at cultivating fruiting plants that otherwise couldn't survive in my climate zone.

Since I'm not experienced in subtropical fruits I'd be interested to know what kind of plant could thrive under these conditions year-round. So far I've got a feijoa and possibly a kumquat. Would a avocado tree be worth a shot?

Thanks in advance.

Ataman

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Re: Moderately cold hardy fruits for greenhouse culture?
« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2018, 01:04:19 PM »
Hello,

You can grow there all of citrus except pomelo and lime, can grow avocado, cherimoya, strawberry guava, suriname cherry, cherry of the rio grande, natal plum, chilean guava, texas persimmon, kei apple etc. If you plant additional heating and you can provide 30-35 F or more,you can try guava, pitangatuba, coffee, sweetsop, lucuma, barbados cherry, pomelo,lime, orangeberry,red and sabara jaboticaba etc.
Avocado worth to grow if you can provide higher temperature than 25-30 F in blooming season. Surprisingly cold hardy,but depends on origin. Mexican type avocado is the most cold hardy.
And yes,the coffee plant and the guava are cold hardy-both easily survive 30 F cold-only a short period of time.
You will plant out the plants or will grow in pots?

nintendere

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Re: Moderately cold hardy fruits for greenhouse culture?
« Reply #2 on: December 18, 2018, 03:46:12 PM »
Hello,

You can grow there all of citrus except pomelo and lime, can grow avocado, cherimoya, strawberry guava, suriname cherry, cherry of the rio grande, natal plum, chilean guava, texas persimmon, kei apple etc. If you plant additional heating and you can provide 30-35 F or more,you can try guava, pitangatuba, coffee, sweetsop, lucuma, barbados cherry, pomelo,lime, orangeberry,red and sabara jaboticaba etc.
Avocado worth to grow if you can provide higher temperature than 25-30 F in blooming season. Surprisingly cold hardy,but depends on origin. Mexican type avocado is the most cold hardy.
And yes,the coffee plant and the guava are cold hardy-both easily survive 30 F cold-only a short period of time.
You will plant out the plants or will grow in pots?

Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it. I plan to plant them out into the ground.

I should manage to keep the greenhouse frost free for all but the coldest nights of the year... So the avocado should survive and thrive.

Mark in Texas

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Re: Moderately cold hardy fruits for greenhouse culture?
« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2018, 08:22:39 AM »
Hello there,

I've been contemplating building a greenhouse the upcoming spring, measuring around 150 sqft. I'm living in zone 7b/8a, so my plan would be to keep the temperature in the greenhouse at least at 25-30 °F. This would be give me a chance at cultivating fruiting plants that otherwise couldn't survive in my climate zone.

Since I'm not experienced in subtropical fruits I'd be interested to know what kind of plant could thrive under these conditions year-round. So far I've got a feijoa and possibly a kumquat. Would a avocado tree be worth a shot?

Thanks in advance.

My heater setpoint is 34F.  I had a heater failure in January, temp hit 18F, froze back but did not kill such stuff as avocados, citrus and pineapple. Did kill mangos.  This Reed avocado was frozen back to a stump and is now at least 10' X 10'.  I'm growing/grafted Ardith, GEM, Lamb Hass, Sharwil, Pinkerton.  Meyer lemon is not only fruiting again but blooming now, as are other citrus trees.



Citrus after the freeze.  I could have started a compost pile with all the dead stuff.  I did about 50 grafts this year on citrus alone and have 7 different orange varieties, limequat, key and persian limes, lemons, etc.



38 Eustis limequat on one grafted branch now.  The quats are very cold hardy and this limequat is a great substitute for regular limes.  It's not bitter like key lime can be.  Highly recommend.



The killer is rapid temp swings - warm one afternoon freezing the next day.  The saving grace for my trees were they were acclimated to near freezing temps for at least a day before the big one hit.

Good luck!

Mark in Texas

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Re: Moderately cold hardy fruits for greenhouse culture?
« Reply #4 on: December 20, 2018, 08:25:51 AM »
Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it. I plan to plant them out into the ground.


Highly recommend RootBuilder, bottomless unless you have well drained loamy type native soil.  Mine root into a heavy red clay "loam".  Trees go nuts in it and THE key to good tree production is the roots.  This grafted avocado tree in July is now a fine 5' tall, actively growing tree of 3 varieties, mostly Kona Sharwil.





Now, showing the still active growth which is very unusual:


« Last Edit: December 20, 2018, 08:30:49 AM by Mark in Texas »

Radoslav

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Re: Moderately cold hardy fruits for greenhouse culture?
« Reply #5 on: December 20, 2018, 01:09:51 PM »
Hello,

You can grow there all of citrus except pomelo and lime, can grow avocado, cherimoya, strawberry guava, suriname cherry, cherry of the rio grande, natal plum, chilean guava, texas persimmon, kei apple etc. If you plant additional heating and you can provide 30-35 F or more,you can try guava, pitangatuba, coffee, sweetsop, lucuma, barbados cherry, pomelo,lime, orangeberry,red and sabara jaboticaba etc.
Avocado worth to grow if you can provide higher temperature than 25-30 F in blooming season. Surprisingly cold hardy,but depends on origin. Mexican type avocado is the most cold hardy.
And yes,the coffee plant and the guava are cold hardy-both easily survive 30 F cold-only a short period of time.
You will plant out the plants or will grow in pots?

Do you have experiences with overwintering sweetsop annona squamosa in temperatures around  5° Celsius  (41°F)  ?

Mark in Texas

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Re: Moderately cold hardy fruits for greenhouse culture?
« Reply #6 on: December 22, 2018, 04:11:24 PM »
Do you have experiences with overwintering sweetsop annona squamosa in temperatures around  5° Celsius  (41°F)  ?

No problems with cherimoya and sugar apple.