What is causing annona fruit to split?

[tanguy]

Update:
This year 2017; my African pride tree produces about 25 fruits. But the splitting of fruits continue. This morning I was surprised to notice that 1 was badly cracked (the first one so far this year: bottom photo); so I picked that and 2 more that are already showing some splitting.



My watering: constant with auto timer, no rainfall all Summer, no additional hand watering given. So, sudden increase of watering may not be the culprit in my case.

Cold night: Well, I notice the lows were 42, 41 on Dec 21, 22 (the lowest this winter for my area) while the previous week's lows were in high 40s. (Wunderground.com).

So, those 2 nights' season lows may have been enough to cause the fruits to crack??
If so, then we better keep an eye on those night's low for your area annona growers; start picking them earlier might be a good advice...Thanks to Rob, Frank and Gozp for all the inputs!

Mr. Sam

I just picked 3 cracked fruits from my AP branches.

[tanguy]

Mr. Sam

I just picked 3 cracked fruits from my AP branches. I grafted your AP and Dream scions to my biggest Aussie atemoya. This year the tree has more than 70 fruits totally (27 AP, 2 Dream, and the rest are Aussie). I just found 3 cracked AP. There is no problem with the Dream and Aussie fruits. A friend of mine in Garden Grove has a Calostro and his fruits are cracking also.

[Samu]

Yes, I agree, I also found that even with cracks, the taste of the good portion of the flesh is still the same like a normal fruit: excellent!  I scraped off the meat just below the hardened but thin cracked surface. Glad to know Tanguy, that your grafted AP branch produces as much fruits like it's mother tree....!

[Samu]

By the way, starting 3 nights ago,  I strung about 10 old fashion "C9" type Christmas light bulbs inside the canopy, the night's low were about 45F, 46F. So far: no more cracked fruit!

Not sure what can I conclude from this simple experiment, but it looks encouraging to me, so I'll continue with it until all the fruits are harvested...

Rain and cold night causes Anonas to crack. My crop has been devastated by birds and squirrels. The atemoyas have been splitting in the last two weeks

Hello everyone,

It has now been almost a month since Dec. 2017 when I strung the  Christmas lights under the canopy that had about 25 fruits or so. The consecutive nights low have not been hitting any lower than 41s during this time, according to weather.com; but they were few days of 42s and mostly mid to higher 40s.
With that info upfront, I would like to update, that there has not been a single fruit split nor cracked since I strung that C-9 type Christmas lights; with total fruits now down to about 21 or so still hanging...

So, as was already mentioned by JF above, I come to a rough personal conclusion that sudden decrease in night temperature was also a factor that can cause my cracked fruits, besides the commonly known sudden increase in watering (as in the case of rainfall).
Hope this little info can be useful for those trying to prevent their African pride (Or annonas in general) from splitting by stringing some C-9 Christmas light bulbs under the canopy...

[9B in Brazil]

On my farm in Brazil where annonas are native, I never see splitting of my fruit.  I don't think cold nights are much of an issue, so long as the trees are well irrigated.  In the winter in Brazil, temperatures can fall into the 30's (near 0C) and still my fruits don't split.  As far as rainfall is concerned, we have a lot of rain all year long.  I think this constant irrigation is the reason why our fruit don't split.  We also are humid much like Florida.

[Samu]

It seems that the splitting of annonas occurs primarily in Southern California, where the difference of day and night temperature is relatively high and the rainfall is very rare...

[OCchris1]

Great post! I have never had a cracked Atemoya in my yard. This thread seems so interesting to me; so many people from all parts having the same problem...and I live fairly close to Samu without issue? All I can say from my routine is that I never miss making the soil moist and I fertilize when I remember. I do (usually) thin the fruits down to the minimum. Good luck, Chris

[Bhkkatemoya]

Just picked this AP and PPC this morning. I was expecting the ppc to crack but not my AP.

[dragon]

Just picked this AP and PPC this morning. I was expecting the ppc to crack but not my AP.

Bhkkatemoya

Is AP sweeter than PPC? I saw many starfruits around? Are they from your tree? 

[behlgarden]

It seems that the splitting of annonas occurs primarily in Southern California, where the difference of day and night temperature is relatively high and the rainfall is very rare...

for it it occurs in winter when we have rain. When cherimoya are maturing do not water or overwater trees holding maturing fruit. it will result in cracking. my experience in last 6 yrs.  This year with lack of rain except once, I got no cracking on Cherimoyas. and due to lack of rain, the taste of cherimoyas is incredible this year as as of Feb 1. Very intense, all varieties

[Bush2Beach]

Not one fruit cracking for me and I have lower nighttime temperatures than Y'all.
I suspect an overwater/underwatering issue as well.