The Tropical Fruit Forum

Behl, thanks, that makes sense.  I will save all my Ataulfo seeds then!  I have been growing them in a greenhouse and they do great.  I don't have land to grow them direct seeded at the moment, but hope to try someday.

Has anyone who has ordered trees from Tim received them?  I heard that some folks were slated for an April delivery and I'm wondering if anyone here was in that group.  I'm in the summer delivery group but haven't heard anything about that yet.

I recently got some Babaco seeds from a Babaco grown by a fellow local gardener -- they're supposed to be seedless, but this one mysteriously produced seeds.

If you can't get a hold of Babaco cuttings to root, seeds from the Babaco (assuming they germinate, which I'll find out soon), would be a good way to go.

Hi everyone,

I'm in touch with someone working on school gardens in LA county, and am hoping to get them in touch with local fruit enthusiasts who might be willing to donate fruit trees for a high school garden in El Monte.  (I'm in Northern California, but will be donating what I can.)  What would be especially great is if you have a favorite cultivar that you know grows and fruits well in the local climate that you'd like to propagate.

Ideal trees include:

Avocado
Banana (not a tree, but still)
Fig
Mango
Papaya
Sapodilla
White Sapote
Guava
Pineapple Guava
Passionfruit
Pomegranate
Persimmon (Izu, which has low-chill requirement, or others like it)
Apples (low-chill varieties)
Grapes
Pear (low-chill varieties)

You can message me directly if you're able to help out.  Thanks in advance!

I know this might not help, because I'm in Northern California, but I've seen plenty of streetside / parking lot / apartment building trees here that don't get any care or watering at all.  Most or all of them are seedlings (from what I can tell) and there are definitely plenty of fruiting ones.  (Some don't fruit, but still grow vigorously, some fruit heavily, and some fruit a bit -- it's a mixed bag.)  Around here we get about 23 inches of rain on average, though the last few years have been slightly lower.

The non-seedling trees I've planted are showing various degrees of drought stress -- the Hass and Sir Prize I planted on the streetside are doing ok with minimal water, but those locations I improved the soil with fava beans / daikons before planting; the Lamb Hass is very stressed and I didn't really improve its spot (plus it's on a mound).

I wonder if Simon's suggestion of planting seeds and grafting over is the best bet for reducing watering needs?

Anyone in California or similar Mediterranean climates know what's a good drought-tolerant / dry summer nitrogen fixer / mulch crop?

Good idea -- I'll try checking some of the newer Ingas I started that I didn't inoculate to see if they nodulate.  And eventually I should do a side-by-side comparison.

This one plant was one of the less healthy of the bunch (probably due to its location right in the path of cold wind), so I stopped caring for it a couple of months back and that probably worsened its nutrient deficiency.

I wonder if Ingas produce fix more nitrogen when they have the "right" symbiotic bacteria vs. these generic bacteria.  I guess that's a study for some serious botanist...

All the P. edulis varieties around here seem to be capable of self-pollination.  Sometimes I give the bees a hand and do some of the pollination work, though -- they don't seem too excited by the passion flowers.  (However I do often see wasps getting nectar from some parts of the stems -- at least I think that's what's going on.)

Do you know why your Nam Doc Mai died?

Quote from: barath on April 15, 2015, 12:32:14 AM

I have a couple of small plants that have been beaten up by the winds in my rooftop garden -- they lost their initial set of leaves they produced last year and have put out a new pair each.  Now I'm waiting to see how they do.  I really don't want to part with them, but I will take stock of how many Garcinias I have in a month or so and can see.  I'll be down in So Cal in mid June.

Baby those Baby's, they could be the best chance for garcinia fruiting in Nor Cal! I remember now the deep tap root they like to send so even with young 2 leaf plants 10-12 inch deep pot is preferable, like the Stuewe Tree pots.

Definitely -- good point.  I do have them in #5s now, and I guess at least one of them I'm giving partial shade to.  Maybe I should put them under the bananas to give them a bit more wind / sun protection.

I have a couple of small plants that have been beaten up by the winds in my rooftop garden -- they lost their initial set of leaves they produced last year and have put out a new pair each.  Now I'm waiting to see how they do.  I really don't want to part with them, but I will take stock of how many Garcinias I have in a month or so and can see.  I'll be down in So Cal in mid June.

Do you know if their tree is frost hardy?

I got some seeds of a supposedly frost hardy Inga and they're really small -- trying to sprout them (no luck yet).

I'm growing these in a rooftop container garden, so we had to build trellises for them up there.  The fact that they're in containers (some in #5 pots, some in ~10 gallon pots) means that each vine only produces several dozen fruit rather than the hundreds people get with in-ground vines, but I'm ok with that.  The one thing I've realized in doing these trials is that it's really important to just try out varieties in your microclimate to see how they do -- I had heard there was no way Lilikoi would fruit let alone taste good with the mild summers we have here, but luckily they were good (if not very high yielding, but that I think was my mistake of giving too much nitrogen).

Simon, I'm happy to bring you whichever you think has potential for you -- I'd guess in San Diego virtually all of these will do well, and at that point it's just a matter of growing them all for a year or two to pick the best ones.