Is Cherimoya a good heat tolerant rootstock?

[nana7b]

I am growing some Cherimoya seedlings from a California grown fruit.

I plan to graft Sugar apple and Atemoya on to some of these.

I am growing these seedlings under a fig tree now as they tended to burn in full sun once the heat kicked in.

My Gefner Atemoya and Sugar apple seem to handle the heat fine. The Gefner better than the Sugar apple.

The question is would these seedlings do ok as a rootstock as far as heat tolerance?

[Luisport]

yes for shure! My cherimoya tree don't get burned in full sun and many days of 30 to 40C! 

[johnb51]

Isn't atemoya commonly grafted onto cherimoya here in Florida?

[WaterFowler]

Out here in the 110+ degree heat, my little cherimoyas are doing horrible. But my soursop and sweetsop are doing fantastic. But from what I understand soursop and sweetsop are not cold tolerant so I don't know how they'll do out here when the temps occasionally come down to the high 20s. I was hoping to eventually graft some fino de Jete onto the cherimoya seedlings but I don't know if they'll survive the summer here. When I take them inside, and put them under an LED grow light, they start to recover. I'll post photos when I get home. The difference between sweetsop, soursop, and cherimoya is dramatic.

[WaterFowler]

I planted a bunch of Cherimoya seedlings, probably about 60, and none I would say have been doing great since the heat cranked up. I only planted 6 sugar apples, 3 in 60% shade and 3 in 3 hours of morning sun then 80% shade and all of them look fantastic. The tray of soursop are doing pretty good too under 60% shade, and I have 3 bigger ones in morning sun only that look really good as well. You can see the bigger cherimoya seedlings are barely hanging on to life, especially when it hit 120 degrees for 2 days. But you can see that lone sugar apple in the tray full of cherimoyas, behind the 2 bigger sugar apples in pots, is doing awesome.

So I'm wondering in our climate, if I should graft cherimoya budwood onto the sugar apple when it gets bigger. Or will our winter temps in Palm Springs destroy them?

3 Sugar Apples loving the 110-120 degree temps, distressed Cherimoyas in the back.


Soursop/Guanabana doing ok in the heat


Larger Cherimoya seedlings suffering from severe heat distress under 60% shade


Smaller Cherimoya seedlings also no responding well to the heat under 60% shade.

[Mike T]

My cherimoya rootstock died in summer killing the atemoya top.It was in a big pot and tropiCal heat seems to disagree with them.I don't know about dry heat.40c and they show signs of suffering. UV of over 13 international units and I bet they would struggle to survive.

[BahamaDan]

Hmm, I've never seen cherimoya here locally but soursop and sugar apples (and to a lesser extent custard apples) are pretty common as backyard plantings and such, so my knowledge of annona cherimola is completely based on what I know from online research. I believe their natural habitat is in the elevated subtropical regions and they do better with much cooler weather than the soursop and sugar apple favor. I have a singular seedling each of the latter two, will post pictures later as it reloads the page if I try from my phone.