Fast growth rate megathread

[KarenRei]

So, I've been searching through the distant reaches of the forum and trying to build up a list of plants which grow quickly for the new greenhouse plan (consider these as "pioneer species", some of which may later be replaced with slower-growers for more diversity / quality).  There are of course two aspects to "grows quickly" - there's "reaches size quickly" and there's "fruits quickly".  We need some of both. 

Here's the results of my searching (all assuming "good conditions").  Please add more info where you have it (both growth rates and fruiting ages, whether from seeds or grafts), including disagreements with any of the info below.  Obviously for some of these (for example, pineapples), the plants are so small that we could literally just import them in an already-fruiting state     Plants from mainland Europe could arrive after just a couple days in a truck, as there's a ferry, so I'd think "truck sized" would be the limit. For non-European sourced, I have no clue what's the max you can manage by airmail, I'll need to research that.

Anyway....

1 year to fruit:

Dragonfruit
Papayas- 2m @ 6 months
Bananas (1-2 years)
Moringa (1 years to harvest leaves (earlier if you're mean), 2 for beans. In good conditions, 1m tall in just 2mo, 3m tall in 4mo, etc. Crazy fast.)
"Grafted cacao" = 14mo (really? how big of a grafted tree?)
Dwarf ambarella (6mo)
Fig (cuttings) = 1year (really?)
Solanaceae:
 * physallis
 * cubiu / cocona
 * naranjilla?
 * probably a lot more...
Acerola (cuttings) = >1yr
Ambarella  = <1years
Tamarillo = 1-2 years
Wax jambu = little over a year when grafted?
3-gallon citrus trees
Muntingia calabura / panama berry

~2 years:

Pineapple
Cambuí-roxo  / rainforest plum = 2 year
Peanut butter fruit tree (1 year 8 months)
Abiu (grafted - what size?)
Miracle fruit (yeah, sounds right)
Peanut butter fruit (everyone seems to agree - 1 year 8 months was a stated time)
Dwarf grumixama (example of 1m tall and 5 fruit after 1 yr. After 2 years, in a 40cm pot, 2,1m tall with 50 fruit
Muntingia calabura / strawberry tree: 2 years to 3m with fruit.
Guava: 2 years
"Coffee sometimes"
"Grafted mango"

~3 ár:

Abiu from seed
Biriba / rollinia
Carambola: Dwarf Hawaiian, 2m @ 25gal pot = 100 fruit per year. But in larger pots?
Annonaceae:
 * Sugar apple
 * Cherimoya
 * Guanabana
"Brandon's Red Jaboticaba"
Some Jackfruit seedlings
Grapes (...)

Said to be fast to fruit, but no time mentioned (okay, I'll admit, I could look some of these up, and probably will later this evening    Others will be harder to come by  )

Santol
Roseapple
Durian
Longan (slow growing first year, fast later)
Cambodian gooseberry
Lakoocha
Thai Giant jujube?  Uneven reports
Passionfruit
Jujube
Cashew
Eugenia neonitida Pitanga Tuba.
Eugenia pitanga and uniflora?
Cacao from seed?

Grows quickly, but what about fruiting?

Inga edulis (2m in year 1 is typical). Inga feuillei also fast. Also spectabilis.  "inga marginata maybe"
Mammea americana (1,5m @ 1yr)
African Sausage tree. (30cm -> 2m from spring to october)
Jackalberry tree
West Indian avocado: >2m @ 1 ára. (but I understand it takes like 5yr, grafted)
"Most vines"
Bamboo obviously grows very quickly - what are some good, exotic-looking, tasty bamboos with fast growth rates?  Would need a good containment approach (copper hydroxide?).

Fast growing, but not fruiting:

White sapote (10m in a couple years, but ~8 years for fruit. Deals well with shade)
Coconuts (at least early on, when they're drawing their energy from the seed.  Several meters tall in short order)



So much more that could be added!  And I probably will when I have a chance to go through the PFAF database (although the version I have currently is quite incomplete - the downloadable db doesn't match the site, and the people there are very unresponsive  :Þ)  Seriously considering writing a scraper script for their site, as after all, I did pay for the right to download the data (and will donate more if it proves useful), so they can't really complain... 

[barath]

Inga uruguensis grows much slower for me than other more common Ingas such as I. spectabilis and I. feuillei

[scashaggy]

Just for a timeline: I planted cuttings of an unknown white dragon fruit on 3/3/15.  The first flowers opened on 6/20/16 and produced fruit.

[nullzero]

Tamarillo fruits fast, more like a Naranjilla. I would say 1 to 2 yrs for sure.

[KarenRei]

Thanks for this!  Keep it coming! 

Inga uruguensis grows much slower for me than other more common Ingas such as I. spectabilis and I. feuillei

How fast do your fast-growing ingas grow?  Everyone says they're very fast, but 2m per year is nothing compared to, say moringa (at least from what I've heard about moringa).  Of course, moringa cheats by making branches that have basically no strength to them 

[Seanny]

3 of our guava plants flowered after 9 months. I haven't tried the fruit but heard it's sour.

[Daintree]

My 2 year old coffee plants routinely fruit, and I think you can shorten the timeline on moringa also.  I was harvesting leaves like crazy after 9 months, and they flowered in a year.
You could probably bring in a huge number of 3 gallon citrus trees that will fruit that year.

Good luck!

Carolyn

[barath]

Thanks for this!  Keep it coming! 

Inga uruguensis grows much slower for me than other more common Ingas such as I. spectabilis and I. feuillei

How fast do your fast-growing ingas grow?  Everyone says they're very fast, but 2m per year is nothing compared to, say moringa (at least from what I've heard about moringa).  Of course, moringa cheats by making branches that have basically no strength to them 

Well the conditions here are not great for Ingas -- our summer temperatures are low 70s/low 50s F and winter temperatures are low 60s F/low 40s F -- but in good soil I see about 3 feet of growth a year or so on young trees with good species.  Inga uruguensis on the other hand has only put on 6-12 inches of growth each year, and seems to die back mysteriously at times.  No idea why.

[Ulfr]

How fast do your fast-growing ingas grow?  Everyone says they're very fast, but 2m per year is nothing compared to, say moringa (at least from what I've heard about moringa).  Of course, moringa cheats by making branches that have basically no strength to them 

My Inga edulis (I think thats what they are) grew much faster than moringa here. At least for the first year, now they are kinda even. Might have been a poor soil thing as it was my first year on the property and Inga are nitrogen fixers.

Panama berry grows super fast and fruits in a couple of months. Worth adding to the within a year list.

[KarenRei]

Can you give examples of your ingas' sizes and your moringas' sizes at varying amounts of time after planting?  Thanks!  The growth rate I have on moringas comes from someone in Arizona who grows them as seasonal vegetables rather than trees (since they can't survive Arizona winters)

[Ulfr]

Can you give examples of your ingas' sizes and your moringas' sizes at varying amounts of time after planting?  Thanks!  The growth rate I have on moringas comes from someone in Arizona who grows them as seasonal vegetables rather than trees (since they can't survive Arizona winters)

Inga about 2m first year.
Morninga 1.5m from seed
1m from stick/cutting

Both are currently about 2m but the Inga has been in 12months longer (bit over 2 years total). It has been cut back two or three times and has much more mass. Morninga hasn’t been cut back at all yet. I forget exact planting times and how that lines up with the seasons which was no doubt a factor. I haven’t fed either and note that morninga grew much better in the better drainage areas of the yard as compared to those with only average drainage which grew slower. Occasional grazing by me may also have been a factor.

I know it is common practice to grow morninga from large cuttings/sticks but my seedlings were much stronger trees. I have also read that it grows much faster than what I have observed, obviously in ideal conditions.

[zands]

My 2¢ worth on bananas. First banana I planted took two years to make fruits. To produce quicker and more consistently I would plant 3-5 bananas together to try to form a banana mat quicker. One or two varieties planted together......3-5 of them 15" apart Then for results you can wait for...then plant other varieties by themselves in three gallon pots or 5 gallon buckets are better, more room for roots. Just one banana plant is OK but will take longer to fruit. Bananas create that tropical look that you want for Iceland that will get you ooohs and aaahhhs and bit coin donations. Iceland is one of top bit coin miners.  (lulz)

Anyone who does not know what a banana mat is go look it up. Creating that banana mat quickly is key to faster fruiting results. Bananas love to be part of a communal banana mat and put out new pups.

For faster banana liftoff plant some close together.

[KarenRei]

Thanks, both of you.  BTW, "Úlfur" is a common name here, it means "wolf" 

I'm looking at plants to try to get to be giants quickly, trying to iron that out before moving on to the smaller ones.  While Moringa grows quickly, it's more popularly clipped down to a reasonable size; it doesn't *need* to be big.  It could be allowed to get big, then clipped back when more space was needed (and probably would be to some extent),  it'd be best if there was something that got big quickly, and also *needed* to be big.

Ingas as least need some size (still not sure what cultivar(s) would have the best combination of looks and taste), but from what I've seen Ingas can produce even as trees that aren't  that large.  Still more appropriate than Moringas, which you can grow pretty much as annual vegetables    At least for both Inga and Moringa, you can cut them down to smaller sizes as needed.

Adansonia grandidieri would be great for filling up a tall space without blocking too much light, and I've seen mention that in cultivation they only take a few years to fruit from frafted trees - that might be more tempting. But expertise on adansonia cultivation is pretty rare (just sent out an inquiry).

Maybe some artocarpus... hmm...

[demingcr]

Mulberry, any grafted superior variety. Grow/fruit very quickly and tend to grow vertical very quickly. Did not see them on the list, so perhaps worth adding.

Wax jambu can be fairly quick to fruit. i planted a fairly small 3g this growing season and it's flowered. Around 4-5 feet tall now.  They are fairly attractive plants as well. Grow in a nice shape with little training, big long deep green leaves.

I have not found Acerola to be as quick as stated, it usually takes 1-2 seasons to establish before beginning to fruit heavily for me. This is planting it from a 3g.

smaller mango tend to fruit, establish and grow significantly faster than larger specimen, i.e 3,7,15 gallon vs a 25. A well cared for 15 gallon mango will likely fruit fairly significantly the next growing season after it is planted.

[KarenRei]

Thanks. Mulberry wasn't included because it's not really a tropical.

Lots of datapoints on things that fruit quickly.  But much less on things that grow quickly.  Any additional suggestions in that regard?

[greenman62]

Inga uruguensis grows much slower for me than other more common Ingas such as I. spectabilis and I. feuillei

isnt this the one that is suspected to be cold-hardy ?
do you have info on it and source for seeds ?

[huertasurbanas]

Inga uruguensis grows much slower for me than other more common Ingas such as I. spectabilis and I. feuillei

I agree, my uruguensis are half of the size of my i. marginata.

I got seeds of inga spectabilis too... I hope they sprout! what size are your plants?

[barath]

Inga uruguensis grows much slower for me than other more common Ingas such as I. spectabilis and I. feuillei

I agree, my uruguensis are half of the size of my i. marginata.

I got seeds of inga spectabilis too... I hope they sprout! what size are your plants?

Inga spectabilis grows much faster for me.  It seems to like to grow wider rather than tall -- I have a 2.5 year old tree that is in the ground and is maybe 6 feet wide but only 4 feet tall.