Growing tropical fruits in Colorado, now including a 'Pickering' mango

[CoPlantNut]

After all the talk on this forum about what a great container mango 'Pickering' is, I broke down and got one.  We'll see if I can find space for it this winter (along with half my other plants).  Pine Island Nursery sent me a wonderful 3-gallon 'Pickering', in the midst of an impressive new growth flush:



It looked much better right as it came out of the box, but all the new growth had been expanding in the dark, humid conditions of the box for 5 days in shipping and started wilting immediately upon exposure to my climate.  I want to try to grow this outside for the summer rather than in the "cushy" humid conditions in my basement, but I still need to keep it as dwarf as possible; I have too many plants already and I need to keep things small to accommodate all of my plant hobby.  So I'm planning on "pugging" the plant; should I do it just above the middle 60-degree 2-way branch or just below?  I want to keep the plant as wind-resistant as possible.  I want it to be as short and well-branched as possible; this survives much better in the wind.  I also have a strict 5'9" height limit in my basement for the winter, or the plant will be condemned to only the light from a similar-height east or west facing window in my house.  I'm planning on heavy tip-pruning to encourage bushy growth as I do with most of my plants.  The new growth has all succumbed to the reality of a Colorado summer since the picture was taken, which I expected from experience.  I've grown many mangos from seed here before, but never to blooming size. 

I also got a 'Kari' carambola from PIN; it was more damaged in shipping from Florida and lost all but 3 leaves before I got it out of the box:



I'm completely fine with that; just like the mango I expected it to lose all of it's humidity-expecting Florida-grown leaves once it got here; if it does it in shipping it actually starts the process of regrowth faster.  I have the same issue with most plants I move in and out of my house every year; they lose all of their "indoor" leaves and produce new outside-adapted leaves.  My 'Sri Kembangan' carambola is starting a bloom flush for the 6th time since I've had it:



I believe it must be self-incompatible for pollination (http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=599.0); it is a short-styled type and as such is apparently inherently reliant on another long-styled carambola for pollination.  'Kari' is apparently a long-styled type (I haven't seen it in person- yet) and as such apparently self-compatible as well as capable of pollinating the 'Sri Kembangan'.  I plan on cross-grafting the two varieties I have now so that the scions will bloom at the same time as the rootstock.  When I can eventually do a side-by-side comparison of the varieties in my conditions, I'll decide which plant I want to keep.  Self-compatibility for pollination is a big plus for me; it makes it a lot easier if you are having to hand-pollinate with a brush in the middle of winter.  'Sri Kembangan' has already been frustrating me for a long time...

I've moved most of my tropical plants to their "permanent" outdoor locations for the summer; during the spring I haul them in and out daily to adapt them to the outdoor conditions but keep them from getting too cold at night. 

This picture captures most of the tropical fruit plants I keep outdoors for the summer:



From left to right (in pots) there is:

Jaboticaba, Australian Beach Cherry (Eugenia reinwardtiana), behind that an Acerola / Barbados Cherry (not easy to see, but 5' tall), a dwarf guava and behind it a strawberry guava, another E. reinwardtiana, a small bay leaf in the orange pot, a 2-year old Naranjilla in a 10-gallon pot (It better ripen fruit this year!), Babaco papaya and a Steevia in the orange pot, behind them the other 2-year-old Naranjilla; a 'Eustis' limequat and a 'Changshou' kumquat, behind them a 'Sri Kembangan' carambola;  another dwarf guava, a Physalis peruviana that was recently decapitated in the wind and hiding behind it a mangosteen (impossible to see in this pic), a orange-flowering Lantana (not a fruit), behind it my pitomba; a Chilean guava (Ugni monlinae), dwarf everberring mulberry, another Chilean guava, Naga Jolokia pepper (green pot- I use it for raccoon and squirrel repellant as well as salsa), a 2-year-old Habanero pepper and more Lantanas.  There's an Achachairu in the back somewhere too, and blackberries all along the fence that aren't in pots.  That's even a bald cyprus tree on the right half of the picture (not in a pot- 30' tall) to make the plants feel more like they are in Florida and give them light afternoon shade and some hail protection.

The plants are lined up along my fence for wind protection.  We seem to have 45-mph winds weekly, with 60+mph winds about once a month, and 80-100 mph winds once or twice a summer, four or more times a year.  The fence and large in-ground trees not visible in this picture help provide a bit of a wind break.

My miracle fruit plants stay in my basement for the summer, along with most of the seedlings and extra-tender plants:

View from one corner:


Assorted Garcinia and pulasan from Ethan, plus a sapodilla, plumerias, orchids, amorphophallus and more: 


Mangosteen (front) and Achachairu from Ethan, 1 week post-bare-rooting-transplant and just before they were moved back outside:


Madrono from Ethan and 2 Achachairu from Montoso:


One of my new hybrid jaboticaba seedlings from Adam:


Achachairu #3 and #4 (of 6):


Mangosteen #2 and #3 (both from Montoso):
 

There are more pictures available at:
http://s1188.photobucket.com/albums/z412/ncomf/June%202012/

  Kevin

[KarenRei]

I have the same issue with most plants I move in and out of my house every year; they lose all of their "indoor" leaves and produce new outside-adapted leaves.

Are you not hardening your plants?  It's not a requirement that that has to happen...

[puglvr1]

Hi Kevin...Great plants and set up you have there. Welcome to the Pickering Mango variety club,lol...Good luck!!

[Tomas]

Hi Kevin,

Nice collection. I am impressed by your bravery to grow all these subtropical and tropical plants in zone 5. They all look very happy.

Tomas

[Ethan]

Wow Kevin, your plants look great!  It is amazing the lengths we go to for our hobby, some of us are borderline obsessive (not naming any names).  It is nice to see them all spread out enjoying the great outdoors (and altitude).

keep up the good work,
-Ethan

[lkailburn]

Great shots Kevin. The lineup in the backyard looks great! When the Pickering is ready to get a haircut let me know, I'll bring down my two Mango seedlings and we can graft! 

-Luke

[CoPlantNut]

I have the same issue with most plants I move in and out of my house every year; they lose all of their "indoor" leaves and produce new outside-adapted leaves.

Are you not hardening your plants?  It's not a requirement that that has to happen...

Hello Karen,

I go to great lengths to harden my plants every spring, but usually the weather tricks me and I end up losing leaves.  I mis-stated it earlier too; I should say most of my plants lose some leaves, and some of my plants lose all of their leaves (namely Naranjilla, carambola and acerola).  Leaf loss usually occurs when the weather forecast claims it is going to be warm, sunny and calm all day so I'll leave the plants outside while I go to work, then mid-day a 80-mph windstorm will come through from some random direction when I can't pull them back inside.  This happened at least twice this spring, and I can't recall a year when it hasn't happened.  It is actually amazing how many plants can hold on to their leaves when being exposed to high winds right as they are being hardened off outside!

Hi Kevin...Great plants and set up you have there. Welcome to the Pickering Mango variety club,lol...Good luck!!

Thanks, Puglvr!  We'll see how small I can keep it and hopefully still get fruit.

Thomas and Ethan, thanks... I don't think it is bravery; obsession is a nicer way of saying "insanity".

Luke, the Pickering will get chopped for the first time this weekend when you visit!

   Kevin

[KarenRei]

I go to great lengths to harden my plants every spring, but usually the weather tricks me and I end up losing leaves.  I mis-stated it earlier too; I should say most of my plants lose some leaves, and some of my plants lose all of their leaves (namely Naranjilla, carambola and acerola).  Leaf loss usually occurs when the weather forecast claims it is going to be warm, sunny and calm all day so I'll leave the plants outside while I go to work, then mid-day a 80-mph windstorm will come through from some random direction when I can't pull them back inside.  This happened at least twice this spring, and I can't recall a year when it hasn't happened.  It is actually amazing how many plants can hold on to their leaves when being exposed to high winds right as they are being hardened off outside!

Ah, heh, now that's different    I remember that sort of stuff from Iowa - nothing like coming home to a bunch of toppled-over plants.  It's one advantage of never taking them outdoors    All that free sunlight sure is dang nice, mind you, but come fall they have to go right back inside, and I found that some of my plants actually came out the worse for it.  My banana tree for example always looked less healthy at the end of the summer then at the beginning!  And of course there's weeds, insects, diseases, etc...

What sort of light are you using in the winter? I'm sure you've noticed that it's hard to have too much    And how are you ensuring that as much of it hits the leaves as possible?  I always find that an interesting challenge, minimizing light waste (especially now that my plants are in a public space, so light waste = blinded guests!)  How's your pest situation in the winter?  Back in Iowa I had terrible problems with spider mites and sometimes aphids, but here in Iceland I'm getting almost no pests; I have no clue why.

[CoPlantNut]

Ah, heh, now that's different    I remember that sort of stuff from Iowa - nothing like coming home to a bunch of toppled-over plants.  It's one advantage of never taking them outdoors    All that free sunlight sure is dang nice, mind you, but come fall they have to go right back inside, and I found that some of my plants actually came out the worse for it.  My banana tree for example always looked less healthy at the end of the summer then at the beginning!  And of course there's weeds, insects, diseases, etc...

Since I've switched to using fabric pots, my plants don't topple over in the wind anymore.  Some plants are better off never going outdoors here; miracle fruit are certainly one of them.  Some of my dwarf evergreen plumeria varieties do worse outside for the summer, and others always seem to be happier after spending the summer outside, so it can depend on the variety.  A lot of experimentation and sometimes near-death experiences (for the plants) is required to figure it all out!

The free sunlight is too much to pass up though, at least for the summer.

What sort of light are you using in the winter? I'm sure you've noticed that it's hard to have too much    And how are you ensuring that as much of it hits the leaves as possible?  I always find that an interesting challenge, minimizing light waste (especially now that my plants are in a public space, so light waste = blinded guests!)  How's your pest situation in the winter?  Back in Iowa I had terrible problems with spider mites and sometimes aphids, but here in Iceland I'm getting almost no pests; I have no clue why.

For winter the things in my basement get HID lighting.  I have a light mover with 3 reflectors mounted to it; during the summer now I am running 1800 watts of light (1 1000W bulb and 2 400W bulbs) but during the winter I can swap out bulbs and put up to 3000W of light over the plants.   With the room full of plants I can't take a picture that shows the light setup very well, but here it is just before plants started moving in to my room (note the HID lights are not on in this picture):



The lights slowly move back and forth on the rail mounted to the ceiling, and having 3 spread out over the 8' cross-bar helps eliminate shadowing.  I can cram plants right next to each other and they still get light to their lower leaves as the lights move overhead.  To further minimize light waste, I have no aisles under the lights; my plants are on rolling shelves so I can create aisles as needed for access, and only when needed.  The whole room is also lined with highly reflective matte white plastic.

I'll probably be adding some LED lights to the light mover at some point, or replacing some of the HID lights with LED; I'm still waiting for prices to come down a bit.

Pests aren't too bad over the winter; over the decades I've learned a few tricks to combat my most common pests.  I had good luck last winter with predatory spider mites (they eat their plant-sucking cousins); aphids I generally unleash ladybugs on, and I regularly spray oil to kill scale.  Everything gets sprayed with oil before coming in in the fall to prevent introducing pests over the winter. 

More pictures of my indoor setup are available at http://photobucket.com/cprc.

   Kevin

[MangoFang]

Kevin - nice variety in what your growing and thanks for the pics -
by the way, didn't you guys have some ridiculous snow/sleet event
like a week or two ago?  I remember seeing pictures in the news.

Was any of your stuff outside when that hit?



GaryFang

[CoPlantNut]

Kevin - nice variety in what your growing and thanks for the pics -
by the way, didn't you guys have some ridiculous snow/sleet event
like a week or two ago?  I remember seeing pictures in the news.

Was any of your stuff outside when that hit?

GaryFang

Yes, Denver was hit by a nasty hailstorm last week.  Luckily, it was about 20 miles away from me and my plants weren't hit.

Right now the plants are being "smoked" outside; there's a 43,000-acre fire 30 miles north of me, just west of Luke's place.   Visibility is down to a mile at times due to the smoke for the past few days, and I'm not directly downwind from the fire like Luke is!

  Kevin

[lkailburn]

Yes, Denver was hit by a nasty hailstorm last week.  Luckily, it was about 20 miles away from me and my plants weren't hit.

Right now the plants are being "smoked" outside; there's a 43,000-acre fire 30 miles north of me, just west of Luke's place.   Visibility is down to a mile at times due to the smoke for the past few days, and I'm not directly downwind from the fire like Luke is!

  Kevin

Thankfully it was only smoking the north end of town. I live on the east side, so we were just missing it though we did have some ash fall, though no where near what i was seeing from friends in wellington(the town north of fort collins for those not familiar wiht the state).

Here's a photo from my front porch Sunday afternoon.


Here are photos from Saturday when the fire was much smaller





It grew from 8 acres, to 20,000 acres in 24hours, to 40,000 acres in another 24 hours.
-Luke

[KarenRei]

Sweet setup, CoPlantNut.    I especially like the rolling shelves idea; around here I have to do a bit of gymnastics to water my rearmost plants, lol.   May have to copy that some time 

When you get into LEDs, just a tip: some plants go crazy over them, some despise them.  You'll have to experiment; the narrow spectrum can cause various hormonal triggers.  In general, mature plants tend to prefer them over young plants.  Also, I've noticed that LEDs tend to encourage earlier flowering in some plants, so take that into account.

I actually screwed up with my setup here.  I'm running a mix of LEDs and fluorescents, but I didn't get my only T8 fixture packed, and I have a whole huge box full of T8s that I got at ridiculously cheap prices.  But that's not the big problem.  Apparently they don't sell T8s here.  It's all T5s.  :Þ.  So yeah, no clue what I'm going to do about that.

Sounds like you've got pest control down pretty well.    How much are those predators running you? I considered them but they were so expensive  :Þ.  Imagine I couldn't get them here if I ever needed them.

[CoPlantNut]

Thanks, Karen!  The rolling shelves are cheapest at restaurant supply stores; they are meant to be used in walk-in refrigerators and freezers, so they come with a lifetime warranty against rust, but still allow air circulation around the plants.  They make accessing all the plants very easy- my previous set-ups always had 'cursed corners' where I couldn't really reach things well and plants tended to die through neglect.  The rolling shelves also allow you to cram even more plants in your available space, as you only need enough room for one aisle and it doesn't have to be under the lights!

I suspect most of the LED panels on the market now are optimized spectrum-wise for growing marijuana, as that's probably what 90% of the panels they sell end up growing.  I'd certainly not want to replace all my full-spectrum HID lights all at once; thanks for the tips!

Pests are always a problem, but I'm lazy and like to let other insects take care of the problem for me.  Ladybugs are cheap; I can get them locally at 2000 for $6, year-round.  When released into my (sealed) plant room, 50% choose to fly into the lights and incinerate themselves each day, but for $6 I can have an army of hungry ladybugs for a couple weeks; they end up laying eggs and the nymphs later clean up anything the adults missed.  The nymphs always seem to starve to death and never become adults, but the aphids don't seem to come back until I introduce a new infected plant. 

The predatory spider mites were $70 with shipping, but they seem to have established a reproducing population over the winter and I never saw significant spider mite populations after that.  I will probably have to get more this fall though; the predators need at least 50% humidity to survive so any that went outside for the summer are dead now.

Nothing really eats scale though, so I'm constantly vigilant and spraying plants as soon as I see any signs of them.  My plant room is ventilated separately from my house so that I don't have to smell Neem oil all winter long.

[samuelforest]

That's a superb grow room Must cost a lot of electricity..

[KarenRei]

Yeah, didn't even think of that.  How much do you pay out in CO?  We're at something like 6 cents per kilowatt hour here in Kópavogur (I'd have to do the conversion again)

[CoPlantNut]

That's a superb grow room Must cost a lot of electricity..

Yeah, didn't even think of that.  How much do you pay out in CO?  We're at something like 6 cents per kilowatt hour here in Kópavogur (I'd have to do the conversion again)

My electric rates are cheaper than most in the US because my city and 3 others nearby own their own electric utility; the prices are tiered (the more you use, the more you pay per KWH) but it works out on average for me about 7 cents per KWH for how much I use.  I figure the plant room is running me about $60 per month to run the lights 15 hours per day.  During the winter I use the excess heat from the lights to help heat my house; this cuts off $20-$40 a month from my normal heating bill.  During the summer, it probably adds $20-$40 a month to my air conditioning bill, even though I vent the hot air outside as much as possible.

In theory, I would only need to sell 30 miracle fruit per month at $2 each to cover my electricity costs.

   Kevin

[CoPlantNut]

Pests aren't too bad over the winter; over the decades I've learned a few tricks to combat my most common pests.  I had good luck last winter with predatory spider mites (they eat their plant-sucking cousins); aphids I generally unleash ladybugs on, and I regularly spray oil to kill scale.  Everything gets sprayed with oil before coming in in the fall to prevent introducing pests over the winter. 

Just like the grafting thread, where posting pictures of "successful" grafts seems to cause them to fail, I should never have said the pests weren't too bad.

I think the ladybugs I released recently to clean up a small outbreak of aphids backfired and managed to distribute a small outbreak of scale to every scale-susceptible plant in my grow room.  They did a great job on the aphids, but I think in wandering over every plant and flying around, they carried scale young everywhere- at least two different species, no less.

I can usually get away with spraying any scale-infected plant and all the plants within a couple feet of it to keep them under control, but now it's time to break out the neem oil and douse everything!

   Kevin

[lkailburn]

Goodluck! I hate scale with a passion. We are currently battling mealy bugs over here! 

-Luke

[zands]

Hey CPN---

Just to encourage your picking the peripatetic Pickering ..... Here is my small Pickering 6 fruits. Lots of fruiting and retention of fruits to maturity at the expense of leaf and branch growth. My other mangoes this size will set fruit but they tend more to drop off

muscadine grape trellis (planted last year) with Pickering mango in foreground. Small Pickering planted last year has 6 fruits this year (five in photo, one already picked) is about 4.5 ft high

[lkailburn]

Wow nice trunk on that pickering

-Luke

[CoPlantNut]

Thanks, zands!

It's been all the pictures of small Pickering trees with several fruit on them like your beautiful example that made me break down and get one, even though I don't really have room.  I'll be pugging my new pickering to about 14" high tomorrow to try and keep it as short and bushy as I possibly can; I'm sure that will delay fruiting or cause the first crop to be even smaller, but I'm hoping to get lucky and be able to try a fruit in 2013.

   Kevin

[zands]

Wow nice trunk on that pickering

-Luke

Stout 

[KarenRei]

I think the ladybugs I released recently to clean up a small outbreak of aphids backfired and managed to distribute a small outbreak of scale to every scale-susceptible plant in my grow room.  They did a great job on the aphids, but I think in wandering over every plant and flying around, they carried scale young everywhere- at least two different species, no less.

Ah, the good 'ol law of unintended consequences.  I had the same thing happen with using imidacloprid to control aphids.  I took the time to research the least human-health-harmful (according to the scientific research) systemic insecticide available (I wanted a systemic to make sure I got full coverage).  It totally worked, killed off every last one of those buggers... then left me with an even bigger spider mite problem because the spider mites are immune to it but become poisonous to predatory mites, killing them off.

At least when you learn a lesson like that, you learn it well   

[CoPlantNut]

I think the ladybugs I released recently to clean up a small outbreak of aphids backfired and managed to distribute a small outbreak of scale to every scale-susceptible plant in my grow room.  They did a great job on the aphids, but I think in wandering over every plant and flying around, they carried scale young everywhere- at least two different species, no less.

Ah, the good 'ol law of unintended consequences.  I had the same thing happen with using imidacloprid to control aphids.  Left me with spider mites because the spider mites are immune to it but become poisonous to predatory mites, killing them off.

At least when you learn a lesson like that, you learn it well   

Yes, I used systemic insecticides in the past on non-edible things, and also found that the spider mites went nuts afterward.  Imidacloprid works great but the spider mite side effects aren't worth it.

About the only things that haven't backfired on me (yet) are soap and oil sprays, and the predatory spider mites.  This was the 5th or 6th time I've used ladybugs, but the first time they've caused another problem for me...

   Kevin