Pugging my Geffner Atemoya

[Droshi]

Should I PUG it? It's just starting to push new leaves, but I was thinking I should chop the top off and keep just the bottom few scaffold branches to prune for next year.

Last couple years it's flowered like crazy, but never been able to get a fruit set to maturity, just immature fruit falling off.

[Coconut]

Should I PUG it? It's just starting to push new leaves, but I was thinking I should chop the top off and keep just the bottom few scaffold branches to prune for next year.

Last couple years it's flowered like crazy, but never been able to get a fruit set to maturity, just immature fruit falling off.

Dont Pug unless you are a Thug! That is one sad looking sapling, perhaps you need to put it into a minimum 50 gallon pot or better 100 gallon to get a plant around ten feet tall to support some fruits!  That is just a twig bonsai you have, hand pollination is the proper mode operandi for these shy self pollinator but what good is a fruit set when the tree is too fragile, barely grasping its last air and hanging to life.  You need to fertilize the hell out of that poor thing, cruelty to annona is sickening; we do have Annona Humane Society @ this site (they seem to jump on every issues and tissues you just wait and watch)!😹

Use an organic fertilizer for this one, better brew some Redneck Peepee Moonshine and mixed it with 50 water and dump on that Puppymill Geffner Atemoya!😃  In no time that root bounded twigs can get some decent growth and let it hair out and growth strong.  Once trunk diameter is north of 1 1/2 half, its fair to say you can support a few decent size Gefner without having the weight on limbs breaking off!  Gefner is a topnotch Eating Atemoya!  Cruelty to an Atemoya just Insane!😡

Now if Your Yankee wife dont care for Redneck Agriculture brewing technique I suggest you just Pee on the trunk and quickly hose the tree!  This Redneck shortcut will get the tree singing; your ballistic trajetory greatly accurate so your wife dont complain about yellow  Van Gogh yellow brush stroke on the throne of civilization!😆👌

As a site note your water cannon should only be used during twilight hours otherwise like me here in Boca Raton, day time attract HOA binocular wielding Jewish Grandmas excited; and those poor single girls are already on medication; they might post you on pisstube or facebook like they did to me awhile back!🙀

[TREESNMORE]

Dorshi
 Don't let Coconut kid you he is in Boca Fl. His trees don't even lose there leaves in the winter. But he is right do not pug it. Stake it Trim the bottom if you want to make a tree like my first picture and start feeding it. These two trees didn't have a leaf on them this winter

[Droshi]

I agree he's a lanky sapling...but I think it looks pretty nice when the leaves all come back. I don't know if it's ready to support fruit yet, but we'll see.

Was just thinking that cutting it back might encourage more compact growth, but didn't know if it was a good idea to do now that buds are starting to push.

So just staking and trimming the bottom branches are enough?

FWIW, it's in a 50 gallon cloth pot, but over the winter in the greenhouse I didn't fertilize my trees at all for fear that it might stress them. Maybe that was a bad move, but the longan and mango and feijoa all seem well. You can see my other thread with my mango tree, but maybe this winter I should have fertilized and would have had better results. Now that spring has come, it gets plenty of fertilizer, mostly foliar, but I want to make sure I don't overdo that as well, so planning to feed a couple times a month. Any other schedule or ferts suggestions are welcome.

Texas probably isn't the most hospitable environment for all the fruits I like, but it's what I have for now...maybe someday I'll find land enough for a perfect farm.

[stuartdaly88]

I agree he's a lanky sapling...but I think it looks pretty nice when the leaves all come back. I don't know if it's ready to support fruit yet, but we'll see.

Was just thinking that cutting it back might encourage more compact growth, but didn't know if it was a good idea to do now that buds are starting to push.

So just staking and trimming the bottom branches are enough?

FWIW, it's in a 50 gallon cloth pot, but over the winter in the greenhouse I didn't fertilize my trees at all for fear that it might stress them. Maybe that was a bad move, but the longan and mango and feijoa all seem well. You can see my other thread with my mango tree, but maybe this winter I should have fertilized and would have had better results. Now that spring has come, it gets plenty of fertilizer, mostly foliar, but I want to make sure I don't overdo that as well, so planning to feed a couple times a month. Any other schedule or ferts suggestions are welcome.

Texas probably isn't the most hospitable environment for all the fruits I like, but it's what I have for now...maybe someday I'll find land enough for a perfect farm.

I feel that while foliar is good for correcting deficiencies sometimes giving that extra boost it shouldn't be the primary method of feeding. Maybe give a whole bunch of well rotted manure or slow release fertiliser in conjunction with foliar. Take with a pinch of salt however this has been my experience with most plants I don't know much about geffner in particular so maybe it's an exception to a rule iv found that roots always come first

That pot looks big but very wide and shallow maybe the same litres but deeper would promote the root growth more?

Pugging is abit extreme but annona do seem to respond well to good pruning as do many many plants.

Use the search function or even better Google search this url there is so much good info already on this site this was posted on just a day or two ago and is quite relavent:
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=15111.msg192453#msg192453

[Droshi]

Thanks Stuart. I think you may be right. I generally have used liquid fertilizers and don't focus much on feeding the roots, just give them a bit extra of the left over foliar in the root zone. A lot of times I'm more wary of over fertilizing, as to be honest I don't really know how much is enough!

I did see the other threads, which is what got me thinking I should more aggressively prune mine. Now I guess I'm not so sure.

I'll also try to add some more soil to the bottoms, the pots are so huge and I have to buy soil, so I guess I probably left off the last 20-30% or so.

[Droshi]

I've fertilized, staked and trimmed the bottom branches. Going to add some slow release fertilizer and soil to the pot. Any recommendations on fertilizer? I have a lot of liquid based stuff, but no granules to add to the soil.

[JF]

Dorshi
 Don't let Coconut kid you he is in Boca Fl. His trees don't even lose there leaves in the winter. But he is right do not pug it. Stake it Trim the bottom if you want to make a tree like my first picture and start feeding it. These two trees didn't have a leaf on them this winter

Mike

we don't  loose many leaves in winter but I think that tree needs a good pruning to balance it....not very symmetrical.

[gnappi]

Dorshi
 Don't let Coconut kid you he is in Boca Fl. His trees don't even lose there leaves in the winter.

I'm a couple of towns south of Boca and my Geffner loses all but a few leaves. My two sugar apples keep most of their leaves

[bsbullie]

Dorshi
 Don't let Coconut kid you he is in Boca Fl. His trees don't even lose there leaves in the winter.

I'm a couple of towns south of Boca and my Geffner loses all but a few leaves. My two sugar apples keep most of their leaves

Exactly,  most annona will lose some to all their leaves in Plam Beach, Broward and even Miami-Dade Counties except in the warmest of winters.

[Droshi]

I'm not that concerned about losing leaves. It seems like to me that defoliating the tree in early spring encourages growth with a lot of flowers.

I've trimmed the tree to try to balance it, but ended up holding off on chopping it in half. If this year it doesn't balance out, then I may have to next season.

Also, thinking about the cloth pot I have it in, I may look for something that is taller than wide, as I've found out, annona seem to like to have a longer tap root, I can't really get something super tall, but I should hopefully be able to find a 25-50g cloth pot that is taller and less wide. Filling these large pots with soil is challenging...I've been thinking about making my own gritty mix, just concerned about weight after that.

[Droshi]

Here's the same tree after it's grown out a bit more:


Flowers opening:


I'm hoping hand-pollination works well this year. Next year I'll try to defoliate a month earlier so I'm pollinating by early April.

[FrankDrebinOfFruits]

Mine lost all the leaves this winter. I thought the three were a gonner (they almost got replaced by some mangos) . Our winter only got down to 55.

Its flush with leaves and flowers now. Still waiting for the first fruits.

[Droshi]

Sounds good Frank. Surprised it gets down that low in Hawaii! But maybe your up on a bit of a mountain?

I've tried pollinating several flowers, but I'm still not certain I do it right until a fruit holds. I assume if the petals fall off that means it was unsuccessful. I know supposedly in 7 days or so I would see the fruitlet develop, but I think the petals are supposed to hold on if all went right.

[gnappi]

Sounds good Frank. Surprised it gets down that low in Hawaii! But maybe your up on a bit of a mountain?

I've tried pollinating several flowers, but I'm still not certain I do it right until a fruit holds. I assume if the petals fall off that means it was unsuccessful. I know supposedly in 7 days or so I would see the fruitlet develop, but I think the petals are supposed to hold on if all went right.

My Geffner is in the ground four years and flowered the second year, one or two fruit IIRC, the third a few fruits all but one lost to seed borers. Both years I hand pollinated them and the only ones to fruit were the ones I missed :-) This year I had much more flowering and it's setting a bunch of fruit with no hand pollination at all. The petals will fall off whether or not it gets pollinated. If you tap the little fruit and the stem falls off it wasn't pollinated, if it sticks on the tree it's going to stay. At least in my experience.

Now my main problem is keeping seed borers off the fruit.

[JF]

Here's the same tree after it's grown out a bit more:


Flowers opening:


I'm hoping hand-pollination works well this year. Next year I'll try to defoliate a month earlier so I'm pollinating by early April.

Droshi

I would hold off stripping and just wait until the tree gets bigger. You should be able to get a fruit or 2 by HP. Here is my Calostro a month later I had to strip the leaves it has tons of flowers.

[Droshi]

Good to know about the petals. There has been some wind lately and it seems like they get blown off. I'm pretty sure I've been pollinating well. On a tree my size, I'm not hoping for a crop, but just a fruit or two to taste. Later this season or next I plan to get a lot more annonas assuming I'm liking Geffner. I've had some decent store bought cherimoyas, but never anything home-grown to compare them to.

[gunnar429]

Here's the same tree after it's grown out a bit more:


Flowers opening:


I'm hoping hand-pollination works well this year. Next year I'll try to defoliate a month earlier so I'm pollinating by early April.

Do you just mean for shits and giggles?   That tree is too young/thin to fruit.

[gunnar429]

Good to know about the petals. There has been some wind lately and it seems like they get blown off. I'm pretty sure I've been pollinating well. On a tree my size, I'm not hoping for a crop, but just a fruit or two to taste. Later this season or next I plan to get a lot more annonas assuming I'm liking Geffner. I've had some decent store bought cherimoyas, but never anything home-grown to compare them to.

I don't think it's wise to let it hold even one fruit.  I know it's agonizing to wait and so tempting to let it hold a couple, but it isn't worth setting the tree back to taste a fruit that may not even hold--or may not be representative of the flavor.  Maybe if you post in the buy/sell/trade section in like August, someone from the forum can send you a gefner to taste while your tree gets strong

[Droshi]

I can understand your point. But I'm sure you probably don't much understand my situation. No offense intended at all, but if I were in tropical fruit paradise and didn't have to go through so much each year just to keep my tropicals alive, it may be a totally different story. I'd rather have a couple fruits each year for the first several years...rather than wait several years to have any fruit at all, then to have a year with hundreds. If things grow easy in your climate and you have tons of other fruit ready to eat all the time, I can understand being willing to wait at the benefit to accelerate tree strength for future harvests.

After spending hundreds of dollars on trees, greenhouse, heating costs. etc. I'm just plain not willing to keep that going for several years before even tasting any fruits. Call it short sighted or unwise or whatever, but that's just reality for me. Maybe others are more willing or have more patience than me. One other guy in Texas mentioned to me that his first avocado cost him $30k or so.

[nana7b]

I understand you exactly Droshi. I am in the north Texas area also. Apart from what you mentioned regarding letting it fruit.....

1. If it stunts growth that's a positive as I want to keep the tree small.
2. I want to know soon if the fruit quality is ok based on our hot summer climate - may decide to cut my losses if it does not turn out ok.

I too have a Geffner that I acquired last year. Smaller than yours. I am trying to get one fruit out of it. I have only a few flowers left so it is not looking good for this year.

[bsbullie]

You are missing Jeff's point.  By trying to let it hold fruit at this size, you could do far worse than stunt its growth.   It could actually cause dieback or even kill the tree outright.   Am i saying it will, no but its an outside possibility.   In addition,  a tree that is that small putting out a fruit, the quality will most likely no be good or representative of what it should be.  You wou l d then be making opinions and/or decisions that may not be accurate for what a gefner is.  Just my 2 pennies, but as my new saying goes, what the hell do i know...