The Tropical Fruit Forum

Mason bees are supposed to be far more efficient pollinators. We have run into a issue out here with our bloom. Apparently the mason bees need to be dormant until March before they are woken up. Our bloom starts 1st week of February and runs until March. Our bees arent coming out of hibernation for us, so at least in our early spring area it isnt going to work for us. Bummer.


 www.crownbees.com is who we worked with.

We have issues with some trees at bloom hogging up the pollinators. Apricot and cherry like to bloom together but the honey bees prefer the apricot, so we get little fruit with the cherries. This year we are working with Crown Bees to see if thier mason bees might be a better solution. We have 4 bee houses spread around the property around our problem trees. The bees come dormant in cocoons and we are just now warming them up and getting ready to release them as our apricot and cherry bloom come on. ANyone out there working with mason bees?

We are on 1.5 acres. 1 acre of which is dedicated animal pasture. The other half acre is the house, orchard, and market garden. I keep threatening to plant fruit in the pastures and get rid of the livestock. lol Maybe someday. Would provide a nice retirement side income. People in Phoenix will pay premium prices for a piece of really good fruit. Few grow fruit other than citrus around here anymore and all people know is the crap they get in the store. Put a piece of real tree ripened fruit in their mouth and they will pay good money for more.

Yes...this discipline needs huge amounts a patience as many results arent found for so many years. Heck a lifetime even. Luckily these tricky tropicals arent the only fruit we grow. We have a nice orchard of other more mainstream fruit that we are constantly working with also. 

 Its so in vogue here to curse the clay soil. Usually the people doing the cursing have never grown anything in their lives and have not a single clue what they are talking about. If we had quick draining soil here not a damn thing would hardly have a chance at growing without MASSIVE amounts of water input. Clay holds that precious water and is the reason we have been able to have the agriculture in this area. You are quite correct in pointing out that it holds nutrients very well also. The only thing we really lack here is nitrogen, which is easily supplemented in the form of urea. For the past 6 months or so ive embarked on a Florida style system of foliar feeding just to see what ive been missing out on. Was hoping to see some improvement somewhere to indicate that it helped...nada. The only element that has been useful is chealted iron. Our high soil pH does lock up iron effectively so certain plants that are sensitive do have issues (Starfruit) but sequesterene solves that nicely. Otherwise I have never seen (on a experience basis) any benefit to supplementing anything else other than iron and nitrogen.  We do run regular soil tests here and they back up my experience.

Gary,

 Pulled 26 off that one tree. I thinned them early on or it would have set twice that many. Truth be told I should have thinned it down to about a dozen and they would have gotten bigger. We have about 6 other mango cultivars in the ground here. To be honest our best performing are the mexican cultivars. They deal very easily with our clay soil and dry conditions. I work with alot of the florida varieties too but like I said they are far more challenging.

Growing mangoes in Phoenix aint easy. After about 3 years of work into it im starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. These are a mexican type called Corriente. Harvested 26 of these today off one tree. We run a small farmers market here and these will be used in jams and jellies for the market.

low humidity is a big problem...turns leaves brown.

good luck with your mango!  Youre courageous!

I hear this repeated often....how does that jive with the fact that we grow mangoes with relative success here in Phoenix? Most of the year our humidity levels are below 10%.
 

We grow all sorts of vegetables out here in Phoenix along with the 50 odd tropical and deciduous fruit trees we have.   

All winter we grow Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussel Sprouts. Cabbage, Collards, Lettuce, Beets, Carrots, Onions, Etc.



This year we added a high tunnel/shade house for growing things out of season.
All summer we grow squash, melons, corn, okra, eggplant, cucumber, etc. Its a funny place to grow like we do. Most Phoenicians assume that you cant grow here in the desert and are baffled by the bounty we pull out of the ground. Agriculture is the reason the Phoenix Valley was settled. People tend to forget that. We love growing here. Few other places have such a long productive grow season. Its truly a 365 day a year deal.

Something that you might consider adding to your foliar program is Southern Ag's citrus nutritional spray. It a minor element spray that helps make up for our high pH soils. Can be had at any home depot.

Thanks guys! I had a hunch it was a watering issue, just could figure what side of the fence. Ill water daily for awhile and report back.

Alright guys, ill back off the ferts for a bit and try to hit it with RO water to see if it makes a difference. Thanks!

The web home for the Phoenix groups is http://www.azrfg.org/

 I attend meetings from time to time. Very good group.

It has always been quite the surprise to see the saltwater not harm things. Im not trying to say its something people should do, just passing on what ive seen. Here in Phoenix we already have salty soil and water. Keeping salts at a minimum are already a problem that I go to great lengths to minimize. So quite aware of the problems that sodium can cause with plants.