Pulasan Flowering

[GwenninPR]

After only a few years, 3 of the 4  Pulasan seedlings  are blooming!  I am very excited.  These were from Juan in PR, but not from his "good" tree. I am guessing they are 3 years in the ground, maybe a year seedling when planted.
A first for me, I am hoping at least a couple set fruit.  If not, I will quickly prune them back to encourage more growth.




And while I was in the yard with a camera, a picture of the jackfruit.  Seedling of Black Gold.  I enjoy this one very much.
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[TropicalFruitHunters]

That is pretty awesome!  Plant looks pretty healthy too.  I bet you've been babying this one!

[GwenninPR]

I am pretty happy about it.  Sadly nothing gets babied in my yard and yet these are pretty healthy.  Not much seems to phase them- poor draining clay soil, too much rain, dry season, no fertilizer.  Lots of my other plants get hit with pests really badly but these guys (along with rambutan and mangosteen) seem to go unscathed.  It is a miracle!

[Tropicaliste]

Wow, lovely trees.  Keep us updated on fruits ...
You've been missing from the forums Gwen ... Nice to see you back.

[GwenninPR]

Yeah,  life seems to take up a lot of time.  Fall is rainy season and winter is my busy season here, so plants get put on back burner.  Now that dry season is here, plants are getting more love.  Poor things, they are so abused!

[FloridaGreenMan]

Gwen...Awesome to hear they can flower in such a short time...hope they set a few fruit at least. Keep us posted.
FGM

[fruitlovers]

Amazing the trees are blooming so small. You've got enough flowers on there so i'm sure some will set for you. Enjoy those soon to be pulasans! 

[rac78]

for the last 2 weeks i've made it to the market to get some of these pulasans, my partner can't get enough and she wants to go every weekend now just for them. I wanted to swap some seeds for anything I didn't have but no one was interested, well the seeds have germinated now in the bag so ive potted them up and hopfully i'll get some nice trees and some killer fruit out of them. Thanks Mike for putting me onto them.

[bangkok]

Did you fertilize this pulasantree? It looks good.

[GwenninPR]

Some observations:
- Of the 3 trees that flowered, only 1 set fruit.  I am hoping the other trees are not males.... How many flowerings should I wait to decide if they are duds and cut them down? They are starting to throw more flowers now, so I will hope for the best.
- The one tree that did set fruit, almost every flower set, but it has slowly been dropping fruitlets.  I am hoping it decides to keep some!
-I do fertilize, but very lightly and very sporadically.

[Ethan]

Wow 4 years to fruit, that is great!  Hopefully the other trees are just shy and they'll all turn out to be hermaphrodites.

[Jsvand5]

Might be good to have a male tree anyway in case the one that set fruit is a female tree.

[FloridaGreenMan]

Awesome Gwen...only 4 yrs to fruit is amazing and gives hope to all Pulasan and Rambutan backyard & greenhouse growers !!!!

[fruitlovers]

Some observations:
- Of the 3 trees that flowered, only 1 set fruit.  I am hoping the other trees are not males.... How many flowerings should I wait to decide if they are duds and cut them down? They are starting to throw more flowers now, so I will hope for the best.
- The one tree that did set fruit, almost every flower set, but it has slowly been dropping fruitlets.  I am hoping it decides to keep some!
-I do fertilize, but very lightly and very sporadically.

Once you determine sex of each flowering pulasan i suggest you keep one male if you have the space as you will get a lot better fruit set on hermaphrodite trees. (Same is true for rambutans.) If your fruiting tree is actually female and you cut both males down you will not get any more fruits (females need males for pollination). So you have to be careful in your decision.

[TropicalFruitHunters]

If multiple males, could always try grafting some of your female onto them.

[fruitlovers]

If multiple males, could always try grafting some of your female onto them.

Yes that's true. Assuming Gwenn knows how to graft? Pulasan is not at all easy to graft.

[GwenninPR]

I have grafted, but my success rate is VERY small.  I may have to get one of you pro-grafters to come over to help.
I think Juan was doing approach grafts....that I have done with decent results.  What other type of graft would you recommend for this situation?

[TropicalFruitHunters]

Unless your trees are magically mobile, then approach grafting is out of the question!     The following is my two cents and I have seen good results.  From all of my conversations with Bryan Brunner, he always stressed that the most successful grafts are done on branches showing apical dominance.  He also recommended either pruning back the other branches or at least tip pruning.  If you have extra males, maybe prune back all the branches, wait until you start getting some flushes, then do several cleft type grafts on them all over the tree.  But as Oscar mentioned, pulasan will prove challenging.  With several attempts on the tree, maybe you can knock those odds down a bit.  Hopefully the more mature tree will help the grafts heal faster and push new growth.  Good luck! 

[FlyingFoxFruits]

thanks for sharing...I thought Pulusan had to be much older and larger than yours to fruit and flower!