The Tropical Fruit Forum

I have no experience with fruiting these two.  If I had the space and location, I would definitely grow both.  The trees of both are stately and quite beautiful. While my sampling has been limited (I have had Pedalai from one tree and Marang from three different locations) and personal preferences to flavor is always the final deciding factor, I would go with Marang on purely flavor if I could only grow one.

Harry: based on your experience in SoFl:
1. At what tree-size would you plant on the ground in SoFl (mine in a pot are 18"); are they too sensitive to our winters?
2. Would you provide some shade the first few years or you think they can take full FL sun?

First, you should know that my blooming/fruiting tree is grafted.  I have grown seedlings but have not gotten any to fruiting size. As far as I can observe from my trees, they can take full sun but will not be adversely affected with partial shade while young. So far, my trees have not shown too much in the way of adverse reaction to the cold that we have had. My observations are that they are similar to mango in cold tolerance but I have always assumed that they would be more cold sensitive.  The statistical sample that I am observing is small, so I don't think my observations can be completely relied on. If I were you, I'd plant your trees out.

I have seen bloom pannicles emerge from other than terminal buds.  The idea of removing blooms when a tree is too small to bear fruit is not the same as pruning by tipping.  At least, it is different in the way I understand it and have done it. Tipping removes the entire terminal bud from the branch.  This forces growth from other parts of the branch.  Removing the bloom pannicles, especially after there has been the beginnings of fruit set, tries to leave the terminal bud in tact.  The hope is that the terminal bud will then produce vegetative growth rather than reproductive growth. Maybe I am not fully understanding your question.

Hello tropical people! 4 or 5 years ago I planted some seeds from store bought Longans and one of them really took off. I'm in zone 7 (North Carolina) so it and all my other tender fruit trees have to spend the winter in a hoophouse I seal up like a greenhouse and keep above freezing. Last summer this tree got so big I had to really cut it back in order to squeeze it through the greenhouse door. So now it is pushing out a lot of new growth and one of them appears to be blossoms. I don't know if it will actually make fruit while living in a pot, without anyone to cross pollinate with.

Very impressive, indeed. I wonder if you have a seedling that is just precocious or if good growing culture....getting the tree to some size and then having the cold caused this.  In any case it is a beautiful thing.  I did fruit a seedling a number of years back and while I do not specifically remember now how long it took from seed to flower, I am quite sure it was at least a decade, may have been a decade and a half.  My tree did set fruit on its first flowering.  I believe mine is a Kohala seedling.

Looking back to the old GardenWeb post on this subject I found this:



hmhausman(FL 10B)   

June:

I planted out many longan (and other fruit tree seeds) when I was new to this hobby many years ago. Most of the seedlings died, or got pot bound eventually and turned into unintentional bonsai specimens. However, every once in a while, one tree caught my eye and seemed to be calling to be planted out in the yard. One such tree for me was a Kohala Longan seedling that I stuck in the ground approxiamtely 15 years ago. Here's what the tree looked like this year when it fruited for the first time.

On 7/2/10

(to see pic, go here:    http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2188147/18-longan-seedlings?n=11)

I didn't take a picture of the hanging clusters of fruit in early August, but suffice it to say that there were 10 pound clusters of fruit hanging heavily on the end of virtually each and every branch. The fruits were nicely flavored and very sweet. There was not a great flesh to seed ratio, however, and I am not sure if that was because of the characteristic of this particular tree or whether the heavy clustering limited the flesh production. I will try next year to thin out the clusters by hand to see if i can get the fruit to size up more and give a better ratio of flesh to seed. In any case, having it fruit for the first time was very exhilarating. BTW, this tree was totally blown over and uprooted by Hurricane Wilma in 2005 and so there was some major limb damage that has kept the tree somewhat manageable in size. For perspective, that is a 5 foot tall chain link fence between the tree. Good luck with your young seedlings.

Harry

I was pleasantly surprised to find bloom on at least one of my lychee trees yesterday.  It was on one of the trees that we call Hak Ip (see prior discussions/threads regarding probable improper ID of this variety).  Inflorescences contain leaves.  This is not unsual because of the ambivalent weather conditions we have had here in South Florida for a winter/dry season that has been anything but either of those thus far this year. 

New growth/possible bloom, but too early to ID is showing on Mauritius.

Bloom or not? I plant this tree last fall. If they are blooms, should I let it set ?

Definitely bloom interspersed with leaf growth.  Why not wait to see if it sets fruit before making a decision as to allow or not allow fruit to mature.

I saw this tree fruiting somewhere in my travels. I remember it growing along a road as I entered a nursery somewhere.  It was impressive with all those huge cannonballs hanging from the tree but I didn't take or try one.  It looks like they should call fiber mop fruit from what it looks like inside.

Oddly enough, I just noticed that my Nam Doc Mai See Tong tree has a small early crop.  Many of the fruits have split as the reached mature size.  There is not going to be much of a crop. However, since there has been such light bloom to no bloom elsewhere, I thought it was noteworthy. Rosigold is just in bloom now at my house for the first time for this season.

Wishing everyone all the best for the New Year.  For my South Florida fruit growing compadres, I wish some cool weather.  If it doesn't cool off soon, I am not sure what we are going to have in the way of some of our favorite fruits this summer.

Here's what I wrote 3 years ago about this:

I have a large tree of what is now known as Redland White Sapote.  I tasted it at the F&S Park back in the mid-90's and thought it was one of the best White Sapotes I had ever had (overtaken, subsequently btw by my trying Younghan's Gold).  At that time, Chris Rollins was calling the tree "Not-SES 2" for what became obvious reasons, when the tree fruited and it looked nothing like SES 2 which the label said it was.  It was later named Redland.  I grafted bud wood and got a successful take and planted it out.  What I most liked about Redland was the lack of any bitter aftertaste that I had encountered in some White Sapotes. And as you said, it does have a very nice florally flavor.  My tree grew large ad began producing.....but sporadically. And, to my chagrin, my fruits all had a bitter aftertaste.  Now the tree fruits very infrequently if at all. I have hacked the tree back, fertilized it, minor elemented it, sprayed it and nothing.  It has now been relegated to dragon fruit trellis status.  I posted in the Yahoo Group a question about why this might have been.  My post was largely ignored. My thoughts at this time are that the rootstock may be the issue and may affect the fruit flavor.  Or, it is a soil issue, or it is both a rootstock and a soil issue.  I am 100% sure that I did not mix up the budwood....as I took no other bud wood of white sapote from my visit to the F&S Park that particular visit with Al Will's class.  Anyone else have any ideas?

So......I guess you have no first hand report of flavor and texture.  The first one has some nice color but does have a larger than normal central core.  Hard to judge the weight/size of these from the pictures. Where are the farms located from which they were produced? Your post indicates that they were reported to have "good taste" but then you wrote that those that are not "excellent get the chop."  You need to get in there are give us some first hand reports of taste and texture.......come on, Mike.  This kind of second hand reporting will never do. ;-)

Harry, I have heard that macadamia are nearly impossible to harvest here due to vermin, namely squirrels.  You have been able to harvest macadamia nuts from your tree, or you purchase from the store?

There was an acre or so property planted out with macadamia nut trees, a mile or two from my house, quite a few years ago and the owner supposedly was able to get a decent harvest.  I cannot give eyewitness confirmation of this and I do suspect that his trees were more greatly valued as a reason to get agricultural tax exemption on the property and for providing his bees with blooms from which to draw nectar.  At my house, the one tree that I have produces small crops and the squirrels do have a field day with the nuts.  I have harvested a couple of nuts over the years but the ones I use my cracker on come from a friend in Hawaii.

Yeah.....leaves not dropping on their own is a very bad sign.