The Tropical Fruit Forum

Somebody on the California Mango growers Facebook page post about these giant Red/orange mangos. Anybody know if this variety is already in the US? The mango can be seen at the beginning of the video and it is cut open at the end of the video. The color is very pretty on this variety and the size is eye catching as well. Please share any info you have on this variety.

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1LsWrjvm5w0&fbclid=IwAR1O8QENTXng_cWIwjLv4VXCTyQapo0AiKKiDSYCuFSn-IHyJT2TwZyPhZg&feature=share

Simon

I recently got interested in figs and was wondering what are the best tasting varieties to grow in SoCal?

I am relatively new to figs and know very little about the different varieties available. I do know that there are several different flavor categories such as the berry tasting, honey, caramel, etc...

I like super sweet figs and will probably bag the fruit from fruit flies so I prefer larger figs so that I don’t have to bag as many.

I currently have VDB, Black Mission, Brown Turkey, Black Madeira on Brown Turkey, Yellow Longneck and Golden Rainbow.

What varieties will produce the sweetest and best tasting figs around the San Diego area? I know everyone has a unique palate but I would love to hear about your favorite varieties for each flavor category. Any pictures of the fruit, especially the inside, would be greatly appreciated.

Here are my newest plants
Yellow Longneck

Golden Rainbow


Simon

Whomever contacted Leo Manuel to request scions from his Leo Hybrid #3 tree, please contact him and cancel or postpone your request until the COVID 19 situation has blown over.

Everyone should be thoughtful in these crazy times and please try to avoid contact with elderly folks or requesting the elderly to go out, especially in the rain to harvest scions. The Leo #3 Hybrid tree is next to a small drop off of about 4-5 feet and it is extremely slippery out on Leo’s hill.

Leo has difficulty walking and even if he were able to harvest the scions in between the rain showers, he could potentially get infected when dropping the package off at the post office.

Simon

A good friend of mine moved to Hawaii a few years ago and ate a fruit and planted the seed. The seed sprouted but she doesn’t know what fruit it came from. Does anyone know what kind of fruit tree this is. Please see attached pictures of the seedling and the seed. Thanks in advance!





Simon

Lemon Zest is one of my all time favorite Mango varieties but my young trees set very few fruit. This picture above is a Lemon Zest tree grown in Palm Springs California by Gary and as you can see, his tree consistently sets good amounts of fruit, he probably had 60+ fruit this year.

I would like to gather information from members that grow Lemon Zest in hopes that we can come up with a strategy to improve yields for this excellent tasting variety.

I know that in hot and dry Palm Springs, Powdery Mildew and other fungal diseases are not an issue and this is likely why Gary gets such good yields from his tree.

Over the years, I have harvested a few fruit here and there from my various LZ trees but I’ve never harvested more than 3 fruit per tree( excluding nubbins) from any one tree in a given year. I do not spray my trees with Fungicide unless they have an obvious fungal infection but I will probably start a fungicide spray regimen in hopes of increasing yields.

I know that in some locations in Southern California, fungal diseases are not as much of an issue and in those counties, LZ probably has a decent to good yield.

I would like to hear if anyone has successfully increased yields for their LZ trees wether you are in Florida, SoCal or some other location. I’m especially interested to hear from individuals that initially had low or no yield and then saw a significant increase in yield after they started a Fungicide regimen or alternative method to increase yield.

I have heard from two growers that say their trees started setting and holding significantly more fruit after their trees reached a large size.

My tree set a good amount of fruit this year and last year but most the fruit dropped at around 2 inches in length which coincided with an increase in temperatures.

As soon as the fruit dropped from my trees, my tree exploded with vegetative growth. I’m wondering if I can decrease fruit drop by slightly backing off on watering. I already back off on Nitrogen pre bloom.

Any observations or comments are greatly appreciated.

Simon

Commercially grown Nam Doc Mai Mangos from Mexico are available in San Diego. They can be found at Lucky Seafood and Seafood City in Mira Mesa for about $31 per box of 9 Mangos. They are good sized and appear to have been picked at the proper stage of ripeness.

One friend bought a box several weeks ago and reported the Mangos were sweet and great tasting.

I’m posting this because I have found NDM seedlings to be very vigorous when grown in SoCal. For anyone growing Mangos in SoCal, here is your chance to get some good fruit and also acquire some good vigorous seedlings to either grow out to fruition or for use as rootstocks.

Because NDM is Polyembryonic, you can get a clone and not have to worry about grafting. If you want to select a clone, I would recommend you grow out at least two seedlings from the same seed ensuring they each have their own separate root system.

Here are a couple pictures of the box I just picked up





Simon

I finally got tired of spraying my trees with a backpack pump sprayer so I decided to purchase a relatively cheap electric fogger. I found it extremely difficult to spray larger trees with thick canopies, it was especially difficult to spray the under sides of the leaves. I’m hoping that the fog created by this fogger will more easily penetrate into the canopy and coat the undersides of the leaves.




Here’s a YouTube video
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PTO1AApO2-g

I’ve been doing a lot of bark grafts lately and I found that the regular bark graft often leaves a large gap which takes a long time to fully heal.

Here is a typical bark graft video
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sk_sgkLzD5c

When I do a bark graft like that, it is difficult for me to make the parallel cuts to the bark of the rootstock so that the cut perfectly matches the width of the scion.

Here is a Sweet Tart scion I bark grafted onto a two year old seedling using the regular bark graft as shown in the video above.






For my modified bark graft technique, I perform the graft the same as in the video except I make the the two parallel cuts wider than the width of the scion. This will ensure that the bark i peel back is wide enough to cover the entire cut ends of the scion.

After you make the oversized cut, you insert the scion and match one end of the bark flap so that it completely covers the cut end of the scion. You then take your blade and make an additional vertical cut that follows the contour of the other cut end of the scion.

By doing this, you can precisely match the bark flap to the size of the scion leaving as small a gap as possible between the bark flap and the bark from the rootstock.

Here is a picture after I made the additional cut following the contour of the scion.


Now you can tuck the extra sliver of bark next to the bark of the rootstock. If you wrap it carefully, the extra sliver you cut is hardly noticeable, especially after it heals.





Here is a double bark graft I did last year using this technique. If the rootstock is large enough, I sometimes put two or three scions onto the tree in the hopes that at least one will take. Now that I’m getting better with this technique, I will only put one or two because this technique has a high rate of success for me. The bark does have to be slipping to do bark grafts.

I couldn’t decide if I wanted this branch to be Sweet Tart or Lemon Zest so I put on one of each variety. Since they both took, I will probably remove the Lemon Zest since I have several LZ trees already.







Simon

Here is a link to a good video on grafting a young mango root onto a larger branch of a mature tree.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GV699_TBGII

There are other videos out there showing grafting of multiple larger roots onto much larger trees on YouTube.

This simple technique may be useful for saving a tree with damage to its roots. It can also be useful for Bonsai or a slight modification to this technique may help with repair grafts.

Grafting Examples has some great videos out there.

Simon

Here is a great article I found that discusses the use of Copper as a Fungicide/Biocide. It talks about the different Copper formulations and gives the pros and cons.

https://agresearch.umd.edu/sites/agresearch.umd.edu/files/_docs/locations/wye/2016%20Winter%20meeting_Copper.pdf

Please feel free to post comments, additional articles regarding use of fungicides or personal experiences using the various Copper products out there.

I am personally considering the purchase of Magnabon CS2005 but it is extremely expensive and I am looking for an alternative that might have similar systemic activity.

Simon

There is a thread for most reliable Mango varieties for Southern California so I decided to create a thread for least reliable Mango varieties for SoCal as well.

One of the most notorious varieties for being stingy or not fruiting at all in some years is Lemon Zest. Due to its high susceptibility fungal diseases like Powdery Mildew, flower panicles get infected and dry out. Without a spraying regimen, you will likely get low or zero yield from this variety, at least for those living In areas where temperature and humidity favor PM.

Pim Seng Mun performs really poorly on Leo’s tree. Leo has a large section of PSM that has been growing well for many years but hardly ever sets fruit. This varieties flower panicles are also highly susceptible to Powdery Mildew.

Alphonso will set fruit without spraying in some years but there is very little fruit set. The fruit that is set can get spongy tissue and also jelly seed. I highly recommend against planting this variety in SoCal.

Please add any varieties that have performed poorly for you in terms of fruit set and holding fruit to maturity.

Simon

I want to start this thread to begin tracking the performance of the top tier Mangos varieties when grown in SoCal. Any information from growers in other Mango growing regions would be greatly appreciated. Varieties that are highly disease resistant in one mango growing region may be a good indicator that they could potentially be a good reliable producer in SoCal although we know this is not necessarily true in many instances.

I will include a few varieties that are not necessarily top tier in everyone’s ratings but some people love these varieties and they are very common in the nurseries so I will include them here.

So far, here is a short list of varieties that taste good and are reliable in SoCal:

Leo 2
Peggy
Leo Z
Sweet Tart
Venus
Edward
Maha Chanok
Glenn
Kesar
Valencia Pride
CAC
Parson
Fairchild
Villa Clara
Thompson
Ivory
Ugly Betty
Cypress
Magcom
Dale
Sunrise
Juicy Peach
Sindhri
Imam Passand
Coconut Cream
Honey Kiss
Peach cobbler
NDM
Kent
Gary
Cotton Candy
Leo Keitt Seedling

 There are a lot more that I can’t remember right now but I just want to get this topic started.

If you are growing a good tasting variety and you notice it produces reliably for you, please post here so that we can compare it to how it performs for others in SoCal.

Simon

the Last couple of days have been pretty windy and I just got home from work and noticed that two branches of my  Shiranui(Dekopon) were snapped in half. I’ve noticed that Shiranui, like most tangerines, tend to hold too many fruit on their branches. I thought I was smart and thinned about 70% of the fruit when they were about marble size but that just made the remaining fruit bigger. My larger fruit are as big, if not bigger than the store bought Premium Dekopon fruit. My largest weighed about 1 lbs 2 Oz.

Anyone else have issues with their Shiranui grafts? The fruit were already colored up but I was hoping to let them hang a bit longer to sweeten up more. I just cut open a smaller fruit to take a Brix reading and it came in at 14% Brix.

Without curing the fruit, the flavor was good with good sweetness and an acidity similar to an Orange. I will cure some of the fruit in my garage for 1-3 weeks in order to let the citric/ascorbic acid mellow to see if flavor improves.  Here are some pictures of the fruit harvested from the branches that snapped off.









Simon