The Tropical Fruit Forum

I have a store-bought Frederick purple vine that's producing some nice-looking fruit, but it's all still green right now. On Friday I was walking by, and I saw that two had fallen off. They look like they shed normally--the stem looks like a clean break at the abscission line. But they're clearly not ripe:



The cat hair brush is there so I can calibrate for color if I compare later photos. I guess that's kinda gross, in retrospect. Sorry!

Anyway, will fruit that green have any chance of ripening and sweetening up? Everything else on the vine is still glossy and green, green, green.

This tree is right in front of my front door in suburban Los Angeles. Based on the seed pod it looks like Magnolia Grandiflora.




It needs shaping, but it's probably about 25-30' tall right now, and it looks quite healthy. But I'm not really a big Magnolia fan. After all, if it doesn't produce anything edible, why keep it?

Would an avocado do well, here? It gets reasonably full sun, but the root area is somewhat constrained:



Then again I learned at this weekend's CRFG's meeting that avocados are shallow rooted.

Are the needs of a magnolia compatible with the needs of an avocado? I'd love to put a mango here, but it's probably too close to my sewer piping for comfort.

That's really "10 + N" where N is unknown, but at least I'll have some benchmark for leaves/month, etc.

Hmmm. I measured some leaves last night:
Leaf #11 (just emerged) is about 37" from where the leaf flares out to where it ends (excluding the little curly pig tail thingy).
Leaf #10 is 34"
Leaf #9 is 31"
Leaf #8 is 28.5"

I'll take some more accurate measurements when I get home, but it looks like it's tacking on approximately 8.3% more leaf per leaf. If I do the math, I should have had a 5.0" leaf about 24 leaves ago and a 3.0" leaf about 30 leaves ago. My pup's Leaf #3 is longer than 3", but it's sword-shaped instead of banana-leaf shaped. Pup leaf #4 should emerge within the next week, and then I can map that length to the table and guesstimate what true number my 37" leaf is. Then I can guess when #44 will emerge and when I'll finally get my flower.

Yes, I'm a geek. And proud.

Here is a list of trees/plants that I have either planted already, or will plant as soon as I can carve out some more time:
. . .
Star Apple
. . .

How's your Star Apple doing? I'm in Palos Verdes, so I don't get as cold or hot as Whittier, and my mother (other side of Palos Verdes) really wants a Star Apple tree. But I'm not sure it would fruit here or not.

Ooooh. Nice buds. What variety is that?

I have two TR Hovey trees, and I'm in Los Angeles.

Quote from: Rannman on September 20, 2015, 03:39:37 AM

Quote from: fyliu on September 20, 2015, 02:07:53 AM

Yes, there's an age factor for a particular segment to flower. Current season's growth cannot flower. It's not hardened and has not built up on nutrients and other stuff(hormones). 2nd to 4th year old growth have the highest chance of flowering. It declines with age as well, which is why growers trim off older segments from the umbrella shape. The shape makes it easier to prune: just cut back to the center.

I have one white fleshed plant in a 1 gal pot for 5 years and it's not flowered, so age is just one of several factors I think. Another 2nd year Arizona Purple segment flowered and fruited right after I cut it and put it in a 1 gal pot. That's what Rob is talking about with the cellular age.

I have to disagree with the " current seasons growth cannot flower" theory. I am able to get a lot of my early season growth to flower on most plants every season. It's possible to get them to flower by letting the earlier growth reach a decent size and then break the tip off to allow the entire branch to thicken up and harden off. I'm not saying you will get masses of flowers but I'm sure you will get some if your season is long enough.

I've heard of people cutting the tips off and having flowers on those segments.

Or you could be careless while tying them to your post and break off the tip unintentionally. That's about 3' shorter than it's supposed to be. Grrrr.:

That is really bad.

There are Keitts from Mexico recently in Monterey Park for $7 or so. 4 fruits to a box, around 2lbs each fruit.

Yes, I had a few boxes of the gigantic Keitts earlier this month, and they were pretty good. Not as good as a Kent, but still pretty good.

But they also were $18.99 a box.

What varieties are left in the season for sale in Southern California? Or are we left with Tommys?

Right. So you're trying to figure out what determines maturity of a banana corm, age or size.

If you mistreat a banana, then either
- it still flowers even when small and sick at 44 leaves
- or it will not flower if too small after 44 leaves and will wait until it's large enough. This is not that likely though, since it's against nature to die before reproducing, even if it doesn't produce seeds.

Could be it's scripted in the genes to produce a set number of flowers and different varieties have different scripts in their genes. Bananas have weird genes anyway. Isn't it one of those things that can have 2 sets or more?

Yes, I'm wondering whether the number of flowers is genetically hard-coded, like is it for the number of rows on an ear of corn.

If it is hard-coded then fewer visible leaves is still an option if some of the leaf "stem cells" (for lack of a better/correct term) just don't mature and emerge. But more than the coded number shouldn't be possible unless there's a malfunction.

If it isn't hard-coded then it could just be a question of "maturity," however a banana plant defines that.

And, by the way, I would never mistreat my banana tree.

Rodney, did you have more or less leaves from your dwarf trees? What variety?

fyliu, mine is a Dwarf Cavendish, purchased from 9GreenBox/amazon.

Heh. My "neighbors" up the trail have a very nice pair of avocado trees that make lots and lots of fruit. I never take without asking, so I walked around to the front of the house and introduced myself. Me:

"Hi! I'm your neighbor from 4 doors down. We moved in last year. I've got the big backyard garden with the pumpkins and corn, etc. I'm having my big corn harvest party on Sunday. Why don't you come by and pick some corn? We also have tomatoes, artichokes, leeks, onions, and a few kinds of squash. I'm wondering if you'd like to trade some vegetables for some of your avocados!"

"Neighbor:"

"No. We use them all."

Me:

<slack-jawed silence>

I think I've been literally speechless maybe 3-4 times in my life. This was one of them.

Quote from: ricshaw on October 17, 2014, 01:56:29 AM

For those who do not live on the West Coast, this is what the Dragon Fruit plant looked like when I bought it from Lowe's.
<image snipped>

Looks a lot like the one I bought from Lowe's yesterday! But yours appears to have three plants in the pot, whereas mine has only two.

Mine has the identical La Verne pot wrap that yours does.

The hanging tag on my plant does _not_ say "does not need a pollinator," but I'm presuming that if it's sold as "grow your own, enjoy your harvest" that it would either be self pollinating _or_ contain a warning of some sort. The sticker on my hanging tag does say "Dragon Fruit Pink #2 $14.98" like yours, except $5 bucks cheaper

So, 11 months later, my DF looks like this!

The two largest stems are from the original purchased plant. The two smaller stems peeking around the back of the trellis post are cuttings that I pruned off 2-3 months ago and just stuck into the soil without waiting for them to callous. They're doing great!

There are 2-3 more cuttings that are ~1 month old, and they're doing sorta OK, too, but not as well as the others.

Originally I was worried about how many plants I could support in this one 17" pot, but on Tuesday (see previous page) I saw a fruiting plant in Redondo Beach that had at least a dozen vertical stems and more than 100 horizontal stems in a square pot about 3-4 times the volume of mine. It also was only about 3' tall. All the stems were dark, dark green, and it had several immature fruit and a few blooms on it. I'll take a picture next time I eat at Blue Salt Fish Grill, as it's about a 10 minute walk from there.

So can I reasonably expect to get fruit from mine next season? ricshaw, have you been happy with your La Verne plant(s)? If I'm parsing this thread correctly the beautiful red fruit from last page are from your La Verne "Red." Is that correct?

I also have 4 cuttings that I put into smaller pots by themselves. Two of them were growing really well, and then about 2 weeks ago this happened to two of them:



Can anyone diagnose based on this photo?

And when it comes to growing Dragon Fruit...  you do not want "seeds".
DF cuttings is the best (only) way!

Is there any part of a purchased fruit that can be propagated vegetatively?