The Tropical Fruit Forum

It might be an idea to plant closer like 1.5 and then remove every other tree when they grow in. 8 years on, it will have all closed in at 3m centres, and there would be more fruiting wood vs. more trees packed close.

Phitrantra can be pretty quick too, depending on the variety. There are maybe 12 reds and 3 scarlets in the yard and they all started around 3-4 years and 4’ from seed. A few phitrantra started at 3 years and 2’. All planted in ground at mega tube size though, so a little different from pot culture. Other honourable mentions for me have been aureana/phitrantra c16 (4 years 4’) and surprisingly trunciflora rajada and one that was sold on the forum here as “trunciflora cafe” a while back (4 years and 5 years).

Guava and carambola both espalier well, the carambola will be more sensitive to the changes in soil moisture you tend to get in pots. I’m removing the trees that I’m not fan of from my espalier at the moment. Both guava and carambola fruit on new growth and respond well to pruning so are ideal for espalier, but haven’t really found much use for the fruit as both produce prolifically at times of year when better fruit are available. Nectarine are pretty vigorous and fruit from second year wood, so a large espalier frame would be required unless you use one of the ultra dwarf varieties.

Rob

It made some blooms last year, they held on to about 1/2 of a full sized fruit but then they shrivelled and dropped. It's loaded with blooms this year so hopefully they hold. All of the Zills ones from Mike have set some fruit, so should get to try some of them side by side. I broke my left wrist and tore the tricep pretty badly so not much yard work getting done other than holding a camera. Rob

I’m getting a summer crop this year, but the size is down and I imagine fruiting twice will make the main crop smaller. The vine is just forming buds for the winter crop now. If I had been on my game I should have tried to hybridise giant yellow with Aztec gem or sugar dragon.

Mike, some years ago I remember a nursery your way selling grafted purple fleshed mamey sapote. Thinking now that this may have been the plant. I cannot remember the name of the place, but it was an Internet only outfit, lots of rare stuff, but eye watering prices. Do you remember this site?

I can’t remember now where the seed was from but 2nd year fruit for a giant yellow seedling. The vine is still small so I bet they will get bigger

Just pulled another crop off the giant mega seedlings. The vines have been pretty slow to grow but getting a little size. Fruit sizes are increasing, most around a pound. Biggest this year was a bit fuller/rounder than this one but didn’t make it back to the house to be weighed. The different seedlings are still showing variations between one another.  This one tends to have a thicker shell and be less round than the others. Definitely showing promise here as they grow well organically and get nice blemish free fruit during our slow period for tropicals.

In one of the towns I used to live in there was a blue ribbon trout stream, with the most productive stretch being the 20km downstream from the effluent pipe. There were 2 types of trout, one bred in the river and the other migrated to a small set of mountain streams to breed. The ones that bred in the river would produce mostly female offspring (phenotypically) even though they were 50/50 genotypically. Birth control pills, pseudo estrogens in detergents and plastics were implicated. I don’t know if plants would pick those types of chemicals up but interesting. There is a doco from a series “the doc zone” season 3 episode 8 called “the disappearing male” about a similar thing which is a good watch if you don’t mind government sponsored  Canadian public television.

Having a manure analysis won’t pick up herbicide or equine drugs, but it will tell you everything else. While you are at it send a sample of your soil. It will cost about 100 but then you will be managing your plot with actual information not conjecture.

Some nutrients are antagonistic so having both soil and manure analysis might prevent headache down the road. If the manure is good and compatible with your soil you might be able to top dress heavily. If you have sodic clay and salty manure you might have to give it a miss altogether, but you won’t know for sure unless you test. Just google soil analysis + your area.

Rob

The thousands of cane toads in my yard seem to have little effect. However the cane toads also reduce native frog numbers, many of which are small tree frogs. One thing I wish I could have more of are dragonflies.
Rob

First of all thanks to the Trennerys for distributing the seeds and seedlings of this jack.

My first amber seedling fruit came ripe today. Opened it up along with a tweed crisp that was a little over ripe.

It is a multigraft tree and both fruits are from the same tree.

The amber seedling  fruits on the tree are smaller, more uniform in size with very broad flat spikes. Average looks about 6-7 pounds. The tweed part of the tree fruits around 15 pounds.

On opening amber is a pinkish orange, looks like there is a lot of latex in the picture but the latex is very watery and not sticky. Ate a quarter of the fruit no oil or gloves and can still use my iPhone. Tweed is burnt orange yellow, less visible latex but probably slightly more sticky. Given the amber seedling is just ripe and the tweed crisp was starting to get some blotches on the skin, amber looks to be lower latex.

Bulb size and edible percentage looks higher on the crisp.

Fruit- both equally crisp. Amber miles ahead in flavour. Tweed is very sweet but definite muskyness to it. Amber seedling more balanced flavours, slight acid tone, strong clean bubblegum tropical flavour. After eating a quarter of the fruit (oops) started getting a little of that jackfruit after taste.

I’ll be letting the amber part of the tree take over more. It is more cold sensitive so far but if it keeps producing smaller good quality fruits then it will be a winner for me.










Cheers.

Rob

Here’s some information on this variety for the other Australians on the board. There aren’t many grafted jacks readily available here and little information on the ones we can get. The tweed crisp is a seedling selection from tropical fruit world in Duranbah NSW. It is available by mail order as a grafted tree from Daley’s nursery in kyogle nsw.

Tree: pretty standard looking tree, larger leaves than some of the selections from North Queensland. Seems to withstand cold well. I have an amber seedling grafted to the tree and that 1/4 of the tree looks pretty sad in the winter. Haven’t had any troubles with dieback on pruning.

Fruit: This tree is still small but carries a lot of fruit. I took 6 green and 9 ripe fruit this year. Avg ripe fruits about 15 pounds. Flesh is bright orange on fruit that have just ripened and light burnt orange when really ripe. Latex is present but not copious amounts. Texture is crisp. Flavour is pretty standard, I find it improves with a day or two of refrigeration. It’s very sweet but my brix meter has taken a walk, so I’ll see if I can get a reading later.

This is the tree, might be about 4 years old.


I picked and cleaned 3 fruits totalling 24.6kg




Cut fruit showing latex after 5 minutes




Quartered and cored




Total cleaned bulbs, all seed/inedible bits removed 7421g (30.2%)
Total seeds 1024g (4.2%)

Sample of cleaned bulbs. Seem more orange in real life but close enough.




Hopefully that’s mildly useful to anyone considering getting one of these from Daley’s.

Rob