The Tropical Fruit Forum

Just to let you all know that I have LOTS of Salak or Snake Fruit seeds available.  See these and others on ebay.com by searching Costa Rica Exotic.

I have enough Salak to sell in quantity if anyone wants.  For smaller quantities or other things please do use ebay as it saves me time and organizational problems.  I am too busy to answer many messages....

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you check out the THORNLESS Pejibaye or Peach Palm description there.  ALSO, anyone in developing countries who wants some let me know, I can give you a special deal, like free or only the shipping costs.  These REALLY should be more widely planted.

I will have other new fruits like good Santol, Fiji Longan, South American Sapote, etc later.... just search Costa Rica Exotic .  I try to have good prices and the best packing to arrive alive.

I have Lepisanthes alata here in Costa Rica.  The fruit clusters are very pretty, looking like shiny red cherries, and my first tree to bloom last year (four years old) bloomed and fruited three times in succession.  This year all the other 9 or so are blooming and most fruiting.   Two are males.  In the rambutan family, it probably has about 50% hermaphrodites, 25% female, and 25% male.  The foliage is pretty, the flowers are pretty, and the fruit are pretty.  Mine would best be called shrubs rather than trees.

The taste is mostly a combination of plum and cherry with a nice texture and flavor.  The seeds are rather large but less than 50% of the fruit.  The peel is a bit astringent unless over-ripe and is crisp whereas the pulp is firm but melting. Most are about 1 inch diameter, maximum 1 and a half, so peeling them means a fairly big amount of work and loss of pulp. But almost everybody likes them and they will sell good just for their nice looks.  They are not wonderful but they are GOOD and deserved to be more planted.  You might find my prices more reasonable on ebay under Costa Rica Exotic....Seeds.

My oldest tree is blooming now.   They are supposed to be considerably larger than the standard Engkala which are pretty small.  It bloomed profusely first time last year but set only four fruits, two eaten by animals and two by me.  Maybe a bit larger than normal but also might be small due to first crop.   I have the one 6 year old tree of these and three standard (small fruited) which have not bloomed yet.   keep in touch if interested...

jesse  Costa Rica

I would love to get Star Anise seeds but I have no use for 100 seeds and don't have $30 to spend.  How many can I get for $10??

thanks,

jesseblenn at gmail dot com.

Thank you for specifying your wants!   I have a medium size good quality abiu fruiting, can send some seeds for cost of handling and postage, or trade.  Produces at least two crops a year here in Costa Rica.   Write me at jesseblenn at gmail dot com as I often don't have time to keep up with comments here....   I do have another very young one planted from a very large fruit and it has bloomed but did not set due to dry weather.  They can produce in three years from seed.  Probably will have some later in the year.  Also I crossed it (medium one) with my Canistel and have two "Abistel" trees that are over a meter high that should fruit within two years.....  That will be interesting....

Jesse

Pitahaya from seeds.

Yes, they take about four years from seed.  I brought seeds of the sweetest red I ate in Malaysia in 2007, planted them in 2008 and of the 40 posts full (three plants each) about 4 of them fruited in 2012 (in Costa Rica).  I used teak branches as cheap posts and they are planted in a tire with both sides cut out at ground level.   That works great for drainage and protection from weed cutters.  They would have done better if I had taken better care of them as young plants in bags.   While they are from red seeds, one of them was white fleshed.  I also have some plants of local varieties but so far they bloom without setting fruits.  Quality varies a lot with the wild ones, many produce few fruit and are tasteless.   I want the sweet ones I don't have to baby, and will replant with the best.  I also have the yellow version from Hawaii started and also the small yellow pitahaya which is sweeter and creamier with larger seeds.  Crickets and maybe other bugs eat them up when they are little but once they get bigger no problems.  The few fruits I ave found for sale here cost about $1 each and are not worth eating.  The yellow ones are sold in a few stores at $16 per kilo!  They must be imported from Colombia.  They are said to like higher altitudes.

They only had a short fruiting season in 2012, I hope for better this year.....and more plants fruiting.

The advantage of styrofoam over other packaging is that is allows plenty of air space which the growing seeds need.  A few months ago I recieved Durio oxleyanus seeds that were FOUR MONTHS in the mail and they are doing fine.   They went to the US in 6 weeks, sat around there 3 weeks, went to my bother in 2 weeks, and came to Costa Rica in 6 weeks.  That is an example of how slow the mail can be.  Six weeks from Borneo straight to here is normal.

I have ordered so many things that arrive dead, some had sprouted well and then suffocated due to lack of air.  Nephelium (rambutan, pulasan) never survive from Borneo but I have had them over 3 months in styrofoam in tests I did, growing well.

HERE IS THE METHOD

1)  Rinse and clean seeds, usually wiping with cloth to remove all fruit. A daily rinse is great to keep them alive before sending.  Some will even start to sprout, which is fine.   I usually do a final wetting of the seeds and shake off excess water before packaging, as they will need water to grow en route.

2) Break up ordinary styrofoam (the white bead board) into a plastic bag.  The pieces should be about the size of peanuts in the shell.  The broken edges are important because they give surface area to hold moisture.  Don't use the smooth commerical "styrofoam peanuts".    I use about FOUR times as much styrofoam as seeds.

3)  Put enough water in the bag that you can shake around to wet all the pieces of styrofoam, then pour it off leaving the damp styrofoam in the bag.

4)  Pack the styrofoam pieces and seeds evenly distributed in a Ziploc bag, then put it inside another Ziplock with the Zip on the other side (to avoid death if one of them opens)...

5) Pack in normal bubble padded shipping envelope or appropriate box.

6) This system has been tested for 10 weeks with Rambutan and 16 weeks with Durian with excellent results.  It can also be used to send live bare root plants, or as a handy way to store seeds or plants when you can't plant them immediately.

**  An additional point is that ordinary Hydrogen Peroxide is a fabulous FUNGICIDE.  It has literally saved hundreds of baby orchids that were on the point of death.  Better than any commercial fungicide, but likely with no residual effect.   I mix it three parts water to one part peroxide.  It would probably be great to disinfect seeds before shipping or storing.

 We seem to have more fungus here in Costa Rica than in Asia, and I lost my initial four or five lots of Baccaureas to fungus within a week or two.   Yet once I used fungicide (soaking the entire seed and pot in a small bucket) it worked wonders and I now have Baccaureas growing great with NO additional fungicide treatments.  I used Amistar fungicide but now use Kiloll (sounds bad)  which is from grapefruit seed extract.   I can recommend a fungicide soak on all Asian seeds, the best insurance policy.

THANKS MUCH AND BEST WISHES!

Jesse Blenn, Costa Rica 

Hello, I am new to the forum, and do not see exact ordering information.  I am in Costa Rica where I have about 170 species.  I absolutely will buy 20 seeds of the Willughbeia angustifolia, just tell me how.  You can answer to jesseblenn@gmail.com.    Also, I have my own packing method using damp styrofoam pieces that you might want to try (and I would prefer, at my risk, as I have gotten lots of dead seeds from Malaysia).  It has kept seeds live for up to four months in transit (Durio oxleyanus, growing nicely).  Simple but a bit long to describe here, can send you a copy.

Expect to order LOTS more things from you once I see they arrive alive.