The Tropical Fruit Forum

Hi Kris, thanks for sharing your pics.  Your trees look a notch ahead of mine, though we purchased and planted over the same period this year.  How much light are the trees getting where you have them.  I believe the limited light on my trees has been a detriment, resulting in "leggy" branching.  On the plus side, they aren't getting too damaged by sub burn on the 110F days.

That Reed of your is becoming legendary Mark.  I think that'll be one you pass on to the next generation.  You missed flowering this year, right ?  I guess it was in staying alive mode after the freeze.  Thanks for sharing.  I'm looking forward to more.

It's been a while since I gave an update on this project.  The trees have been out from Spring and through Summer now.  They've had a chance to thrive or dive.  I've lost five out of nine of the trees that were planted.  Those all were the weakest at the outset, and two were victims of my veneer grafting experimentation.  I did have a strong Duke scion for a while, but the mother plant seemed to fade, and it took the graft along with it.

It's interesting to juxtapose the pictures of these trees that I took in April to those from this week.  Those that survived look more or less the same size and health as the original specimens.  I know that most of the original leaves fell, and those were replaced with more bug-eaten versions of the same.  Here are some pics.  I wonder if these will survive the Winter.  Four Winds nursery has a good stock of trees for sale right now, including Reed, which is difficult to find in this area.  I'm dithering on whether to wait for next Spring to purchase them, or grab them through the web now.  I'd love to hear how Zephian and the others are fairing with their similar projects.

Lamb-Hass:


Mostly dead Stewart:


Holiday hanging on:


Threadbare Sir Prize:


Pinkerton:


I've got three avocados on my five year old trees in containers.  2 on one (Furte) and 1 one more on a Bacon; nil on the Mexicola.

That's quite a Ranch you've got there in the making.  Did you landscape all that yourself, or use a crew?  I foresee one day a hundred years hence folks will talk about he Hockey ranch that survived the great heat purges of the 2030's and there remains a vessel for the continuation of the Persea americana species.  With the surround product, did you find that it washed away after rain?  Did it clog up your sprayer at 4cups to a gallon (is that right?)?  Did it work to deter ants?

Thanks for all the great pics.  They will make a nice reference in the future.

Hi Mark, the roots in 7 out of 9 of those pots were bound and rotting when I got them from the nursery.  How bound up varied from plant to plant, but nearly all had a good amount of brown, dead root matter.  I actually did as you described with several of the plants and cut the pot down the sides, but honestly I found that it was hard not to slice through some of the roots in doing this with my box cutter,  and it was surprisingly difficult to actually extricate the plant in this manner, so I came to the conclusion that for these root bound plants it was just easier to pull them out cleanly from the pot as a unit.  I've gotten different opinions on whether it's best to shred and remove the dead root matter at planting or go to any length not to disturb the roots.  On my initial plant, I left the roots totally untouched, but then when I re-potted, I noticed there was a kind of boundary delimited by the original pot outline and the 2-3" of expansion "soil."  It seemed the good roots were mostly trapped inside the dead.  I only saw a few good roots growing out in a downward direction.  So I decided to rip-up and remove the dead roots there.  I'm sure some healthy roots suffered with that move.  I'm still hoping they can recover.  I'm looking for the day when these plants start to draw on the water held by the soil, and I can actually begin to water them again and add that so important mulch layer back.  I've planted avocados in the past and didn't have any of these types of issues, but I think the combo of less than healthy plants and perhaps too much peat and cocohull in my grow medium has led to my issues this time round.  I'll keep at it, and try to remember these setbacks for next time.

I can't imaging I'd ever spend $75 on five avocados here in California.  Better to take a SouthWest flight down south and gather 50 at $2 a piece.  It is worth noting that they have a deal now and have reduced the price by half.  I sliced open the second Reed from WF yesterday.  It was slightly better, but still not a great specimen.  It's like they picked it early but the fruit is actually starting to go bad from age.  I'll look forward to trying a better example in the future.  Where have you been posting (or have you) the progress on all your avocado grafting there in the greenhouse?

I got them at the local farmers market in the past and they  are excellent.  Havent seen them at the grocery.  The skin is thicker than most avocados so as soon as it gives its ready.  The grit is from the peel.  If you just dont scrape it it wont come off.  They are a bit early to be selling at the stores unless they want to put people off and not have them buy more.  They are without a doubt one of the best avocado there is.  Not watery, its super high oil content by end of summer.  You will not be disappointed to grow them.  Only caveat is they may take forever to get ripe on the tree in northern CA.  A smaller mexican avocado is probably a better place to start.

Reed seeds are good for rootstock.  They grow vigorous once thry get going.  Zutanon and bacon are in season 6 months ago, I wouldnt bother waiting for them, you can always start more later.

Thanks for the info.  I wasn't too put off by the grit, and I could see that it came from scraping the peel too enthusiastically.  I'm familiar with the stuff, but I'm not sure if its indicative of the fruit maturity or just something you'll find.  I've not given up on the Reed, but I do think they picked these fruit too soon.  I'll go ahead and try and root the seeds for use as RS, and maybe I can leave a branch of the original to see if it survives the 10+ years to maybe set fruit down the road.  On second thought, that's probably a bad idea.

Thanks Kris.  That will be great to know.

seed should be just under the surface mate....not 3 inches down......you can also try that cocktail sticks skewered over a glass of water thing but ive never had a joy with that......hunt on you tube.

I see.  Good to know.  Now for seeds.

All of my citrus are in containers.  I found that as the trees grew larger to fill there 40-gal containers, they became harder to water.  In the hot Spring, Summer, Fall months, I would have to pretty much have a constant drip (w/ soakers under mulch) running for the afternoon hours.  I had a lot of fruit drop due to this (even mature fruit was dropping and/or splitting).  After moving to a spot where the trees only saw morning to early afternoon sunlight (and were shaded in the later afternoon), the plants started doing much better.  I do think they suffer in the energy and photosynthesis side somewhat from their limited ~6 hours of sun, but it's worth the trade-off.  For trees planted in the ground, I would think that it would depend on how scalding hot the sun gets during periods when the tree is pushing out new leaves.  Also, how well they can be irrigated.  Younger trees likely benefit from the adaptive shading.

You are the Containerman.  Nice clutch of avocados you've got there!

Of the three older containerized trees I mentioned earlier in the thread, the Fuerte and I believe Mexicola have set and held (to date) two each about thumbnail-sized fruit.  The Fuerte had probably 100 fruit earlier in the year, but they all dropped, as they did last year.  Besides the two larger sized fruit on the Fuerte, it has about five much smaller fruit hanging on, but I suspect they're just late to drop.  The Bacon didn't set any fruit sadly.  Here are some pics.

Fuerte:






Mexicola (or perhaps I have it mixed up with Bacon):

Kris, that's too bad about the Holiday.  Sounds like yours is shriveling back like my own two from Green Acres.  You know something is wrong when you are getting 90-110F degree days and still you haven't been able to water your Avocado plant for 2-3 weeks because its soil is still "wet."

Brad, your pics above are lovely.  I can't help bus feel envious as too how unmolested that foliage looks.  I'd say 4 out of 5 of the new flush from my avocado trees are riddled with holes from some leaf eating critters.  1 in 5 is eaten to total evanescence - just a frame of a leaf left.  I'm organic mostly, so the sprays I'm using must not matter to these leaf hoppers. (I presume that's what's munching down on them.)  Sorry to hear about the overload of fruit leading to premature drop, though you have to admit that has got to be a "1st world problem."

Keep the pics flowing - they're encouraging through the eyes.