Annona Pollinating Question

[Garden_Harley_FL]

Hi Everyone,

I have diffrent annona in my garden such as Sugar Apples (about 30 trees) , Atemoyas, Ilamas, Custard Apple, & Cherilata (Cherimoya x Reticulata) -

I have been hand pollinating my Sugar Apple Flowers all fine and have alot of flowers - they have started to fruit - But my question is will I be able to use the same Sugar Apple Pollen To pollinate my Atemoyas, Custard Apples, Ilamas & Cherilata?

I have an overabundance of sugar apple flowers that will be disposable to me to use the pollen - but just was wondering if anyone had any past experience trying this or if its recommend staying with the same pollen to each of the variety.

Thanks all

[Kevin Jones]

Sorry... I have no expertise to contribute except to say... Man I wish I had that many sugar apples and the climate to accommodate them.
I have one Na Dai sugar Apple and it over-winters in my greenhouse.
It blooms... but requires hand pollination... which I must say I have yet to perfect.
So I am watching this post with interest!
Good luck!

Kevin Jones

[achetadomestica]

This is early for me this year but we were 97F last week.
I see several dream fruit already without hand pollination
I am curious when you were hand pollinating were the flowers
full of very small beetles? I hand pollinated some last year and
I swear the flowers I pollinated didn't set? My flowers were full
of beetles and the trees were loaded. There are some very good
videos on proper hand pollination on You Tube
If you cross pollinate with different pollen it wouldn't effect
the fruit but the seeds would be less likely to be true, If you have
atemoyas then you would already have different characteristics
in the seeds. I planted 30 atemoya seeds last year and some of the
seedlings had round leaves and some had more slender pointed leaves.

Today Steve at Fruitscapes told me the cherilata set in July I usually don't see
much else flowering then so I will have to use cherilata to pollinate cherilata.
I only have one ilama and I didn't try to hand pollinate it this year or last.
I wanted it to grow and get established but I would only use ilama pollen if
possible.

[Garden_Harley_FL]

This is early for me this year but we were 97F last week.
I see several dream fruit already without hand pollination
I am curious when you were hand pollinating were the flowers
full of very small beetles? I hand pollinated some last year and
I swear the flowers I pollinated didn't set? My flowers were full
of beetles and the trees were loaded. There are some very good
videos on proper hand pollination on You Tube
If you cross pollinate with different pollen it wouldn't effect
the fruit but the seeds would be less likely to be true, If you have
atemoyas then you would already have different characteristics
in the seeds. I planted 30 atemoya seeds last year and some of the
seedlings had round leaves and some had more slender pointed leaves.

Today Steve at Fruitscapes told me the cherilata set in July I usually don't see
much else flowering then so I will have to use cherilata to pollinate cherilata.
I only have one ilama and I didn't try to hand pollinate it this year or last.
I wanted it to grow and get established but I would only use ilama pollen if
possible.

Yes, many of my flowers often have the little beetles pollinating. I feel bad disturbing them with my brush as they seem to get angry and fly away once I preform artificial pollination.
I have slowed down on pollinating some sugar apples due to them having much fruit, but there are some I see that still get naturally pollinated.
I had no idea about the seeds and pollen being true - thanks for the information on that.

This year is the first year my ilamas in the ground so I hope it will flower.
As far as Cherilata it seems as I will be doing the same - although I may have a few flowers blooming by the next few weeks.

[Garden_Harley_FL]

Sorry... I have no expertise to contribute except to say... Man I wish I had that many sugar apples and the climate to accommodate them.
I have one Na Dai sugar Apple and it over-winters in my greenhouse.
It blooms... but requires hand pollination... which I must say I have yet to perfect.
So I am watching this post with interest!
Good luck!

Kevin Jones

Thanks Kevin!
I have more Na Dais than the Thai Lessard Sugar Apple & Kampong Muave. I like how chewy Na Dais are and how the skin is a bit easier to peel. I also find that Na Dai gets bigger in my home country Colombia - so naturally is why I grow more here in Florida.
Goodluck on your Na Dai

Will keep everyone updated with my pollinating on these annonas.

[Kevin Jones]

Please describe these beetles so I can be on the look-out for them.
Thanks.

Kevin Jones

[Epicatt2]

Please describe these beetles so I can be on the look-out for them.

Hi Kevin,

Let me chime in here . . . .    A couple years back I noticed that a piece of spoiling citrus (doesn't matter what kind) fruit that I a few days earlier had tossed into the back yard had landed in my sugar apple's pot. By then it had a small patch of mold on the skin and a hole with tiny brown beetles entering and exiting the hole.  They were also visiting the flowers on my sugar apple.

These are the same brown beetles that one usually can see attacking fallen/spoiling citrus fruit here in Florida.

But that season I had more sugar apples set on my tree than ever before.  So now I always put a citrus rind in my sugar apple's pot while it's blooming.  I figured, well, why not? Why not let those beetles work my sugar apple's flowers.  I often have limes that I have cut in half and juiced. I place the rinds curved skin side up on the soil in the pot so it won't dry out too fast and so will remain attractive to the little beetles.

This year with a recently acquired Atemoya 'Gefner' that's just now started making (and dropping) flowers I'm going to put a citrus rind in its pot to see how that affects the fruit set on the 'Gefner'.

And just FWIW, it seems that any spoiling citrus fruit or citrus rind tends to attract those same little beetles.  So why not use them as pollinators?  In bags of Clementines from the grocery store there's sometimes one that's turning soft.  Those work great in the Annona pots to attract those beetles to the flowers, just for the record.

Hope this helps . . .

ˇPura Vida!

Paul M.
==

[Epicatt2]

Please describe these beetles so I can be on the look-out for them.

Kevin,

They're prolly about 1/16th to 3/32nds of an inch long, a sort of pale chestnut brown color, and crawl or fly.  Don't know the Latin name for them but maybe someone else on these Forums will know.

Anyway if you or a neighbor has a citrus tree and it has any fallen fruit under it which is starting to spoil, then go have a look at that fruit.  I'll bet you a dollar to donuts that there'll be some of those little beetles working the spoiling fruit.

Hey, so if there's not any spoiling fruit around, put a piece of citrus fruit from the grocery store ouside under your, say, azalea hedge and wait a couple three days.  As soon at that piece of fruit starts going bad the beetles will come and you can see what the look like!

OK – Hope this helps . . .

Paul M.
==

[JandJPalms]

FYI, Har Mahdeem has a really good hand pollination video on YouTube. In this video he shows what the beetles look like, and gives pollination instructions.

[FloridaGreenMan]

The are called Nitiludid beetles. They are the primary pollinators of anonnas but hand pollination produces much better quality fruits. I had two large Sugar Apples  trees in Coral Springs that regularly produced over 100 larges sized fruits every year. I would remove most of the naturally pollinated fruits since they were too small or poorly pollinated. 

[Jani]

The are called Nitiludid beetles. They are the primary pollinators of anonnas but hand pollination produces much better quality fruits. I had two large Sugar Apples  trees in Coral Springs that regularly produced over 100 larges sized fruits every year. I would remove most of the naturally pollinated fruits since they were too small or poorly pollinated.

did those SA trees have issues with chalcid wasps and if so how did you manage it? I'm
about to lose an entire crop of SA to that. I have Dream tree right next to it, so close their branches are tangled,  that's loaded with fruit, and (crosses fingers) not a single fruit was affected.

[Guanabanus]

I am glad to hear that about 'Dream.'

[Kevin Jones]

Is there a time of day that is best for hand pollination?
Also I DO see those beetles now that I look for them... really tiny.
My pollination brush tends to tickle them out.
I've also put some old citrus peels around the top of the soil to help attract more of them.

Kevin Jones

[kh0110]

It's been a couple of years now that I see these sap beetles (Nitidulid) here where I am in So Cal. Now, I even see what looks like a normal house fly messing around with my annonas flowers along with ants.

 

This year, there is a new comer and it's much bigger than a sap beetle:
   

[Guanabanus]

Time of day that the pollen is fresh.  Different species and varieties have different pollen availability times.