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Messages - Cory_Haiti

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Looking for opinions on highest quality brands 4" submersible well water pump.
« on: December 26, 2019, 01:07:55 PM »
We have a 4" 110 or 120V franklin submersible, heavy use since '08, terrible electric power from utility and generators, high and low voltage that burned out refrigerators and computers, etc. it is still working.

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Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / Re: Help with ID'ing bananas - Misi Luki & Saba
« on: May 31, 2017, 09:32:46 PM »
I have these two from Agristarts. I never heard of bacuba.

Bacuba looks like what they sell as 'Misi Luki'

The burro is 'Saba'. It is better ripe than burro.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Edible Fruit Palm/Palms
« on: May 07, 2017, 09:01:35 PM »
From what I have read and what I have tried, favor is as good in spineless as it is in spiney trees. I suspect that spineless require cross pollination more than the spiney types do. I do have a spineless that sets bunches of seedless fruit when not pollinated but most drop all the fruit if not pollinated. I was told in Costa Rica that they prefer seeded fruit. I like the seedless, less dry fruit but it is also less oily unless allowed to fully ripen. Seeded fruit ripen faster and fruit with larger seeds tends to ripen before fruit with small seeds in the same bunch.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Varieties of Ross sapote ?
« on: May 07, 2017, 08:18:39 PM »
 I have fruiting Ross, Bruce (from Pine Island Nursery) and Trompo (from ECHO). In my small nursery, most of the ross seedlings look like the other canistel seedlings and none really look like Ross. Ross has rounded leaf ends, doesn't look the same as other canistel leaves and more leaves per twig.

I would be interested in knowing if it strongly out crosses and what the hybrid fruit is like.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Edible Fruit Palm/Palms
« on: March 19, 2017, 07:24:09 AM »
The high yield, oily peach palm has good flavor, not too strong, but it is dry even after a couple hours of boiling. Good in soups or with mayonnaise.

I do have some acai. First fruit set this year, only half size and green now.

My lowest temperature is about 58'F/14'C. So I don't have cold, but have seen them in the Miami area of Florida, don't think they take much more cold than that but as tough as peach palm is it seems like it would re-grow after a hard frost.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Edible Fruit Palm/Palms
« on: March 18, 2017, 03:13:12 PM »
About spineless peach palm, its productivity and oil content:

I’ve grown peach palms here in Haiti since 2009. I bought “spineless” seeds that year from RarePalmSeeds.com and most grew spineless. Several more orders from RarePalmSeeds and other sources usually didn’t germinate. The original trees were growing so well and I couldn’t find a reliable source of seed so in 2014 I went to Costa Rica to get a good genetic diversity of seed. I have about 520 planted out on about 3 acres. The goal is to get a good source of seeds and seedlings to distribute in Haiti for development, food security, and helping our mission churches.

Last year many of the original trees started fruiting. Most of the thornless fruits are similar and low oil, but one is highly productive and oily. Over 100 pounds of fruit the past 12 months, I guess about 120 pounds. 8 or 9 bunches, heaviest was 24 pounds. Some of the trees set seedless fruits and others drop all their immature fruit if they don’t get pollinated. Pollination is an issue here, we don’t have the beetles that do most of the pollination in the native range. Pollen drops about an hour before sunset and bees sometimes visit the blooms but nothing like the interest they have for royal palms and coconuts. With about 8 blooming trees, and our two bloom periods per year, there isn’t much bloom overlap for pollination, I have had to save pollen and hand pollinate to get good bunches of seeded fruit.




I also have a few wild type, probably B. setulosa with small red fruit, hardly any pulp, not good eating, I’m pretty sure they set seeded fruit without other bactris blooming. They are spineless when small, but get very spiney all over when they grow a trunk.



2014 & 2015 were years of drought in Costa Rica and Haiti. Here are photos I took at CATIE. Their thornless peach palms looked as productive as the thorny ones. I was told that the thornless are usually low-oil. The people there prefer fruits with seeds because seedless is low oil. There was an extremely oily thornless peach palm that wasn’t very good because of fibers in the fruit. Another had fruit almost at ground level.






Some of my plants are from fruits at a big tourist stop market near Squirres, Costa Rica. At least 3 of the thornless peach palm seedlings from Costa Rica are turning spiney now that they are getting trunks. At least the spines are short but it is a problem when planted where thorns are a danger like by a path in a public area. I wonder if it is a setulosa or other hybrid that may have an advantage at higher elevations.



The young trees have really done best where there is some shade, usually from larger nearby trees but this may be due to the dry weather the first year after they were planted. They tend to get stunted and yellow in full sun, whether in the ground or in the nursery.

Peach palm tend to grow much faster than acai here. I have had close to 100 percent survival in the field despite many being attacked by goats, cows, white grubs and rhino beetles. They just  put up a new sucker if any of the base is left intact. If a beetle eats the heart it usually results in two or more plants coming up, which can be divided for propagation. A person experienced digging banana pups with a digging bar can have good results removing good size offshoots for propagation.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Introduce Yourself
« on: March 18, 2017, 02:09:37 PM »
Hi,

My name is Cory and I have always loved gardening and fruits. I earned a degree in Fruit Horticulture from Michigan State University, then learned about tropical fruit during an internship at ECHO in Florida. That led to a mission in the Santarem area of Brazil, for 21 months and I planted fruit trees at a remote jungle camp they had as a training school and working farm, with the goal of making it more self supporting. (I was dissapointed with how few jungle fruits there were in the Manaus and Belem markets after being to the Santarem market many times!)

I married a medical Dr. who had lived in Haiti for two years as a child and we started work in Haiti with the Wesleyan Mission in Anse-a-Galets, island of LaGonave. After 9 years we were invited to thier north Haiti campus. So after the years of killing many tropical fruits on the dry, salty island, (enjoyed the productive canistel, papaya, sapodilla, and moringa), it was exciting to move to an area with good soil and plenty of well distributed rainfall. Time to find and grow the Amazon fruits that Brazilians loved and most Haitians never heard of. I have about 6 or 8 acres of tree-gardens & yards on the mission campus and nearby planted to introduced fruit trees. Close to 3 acres are peach palm, some spineless. (Will post soon on the Edible Palms thread.) The campus is about 12 acres total and has a school, church and hospital plus 3 acres nearby that I purchased and planted 2 years ago.

After 10 years here, this summer we plan to start work at a new Wesleyan property, 30 acres of tree-less garden, brush, and pasture, at 4,400 feet elevation. Time to put the old Michigan studies and experience with apples, peaches and strawberries, etc. to work. The area grows good corn, beans and cattle but many of the children have protein malnutrition (probably landless families or because they sell the beans and cattle and just eat corn? Big need for nutrition education and/or higher value crops). I plan to keep my current 3 employees in charge of the nursery here so it should continue to produce fruit trees for this area. We will also see which species do well at higher altitude. I like planting and sharing fruit as much as eating fruit or trying new fruit so I am looking forward to the move even though many of the trees here are just coming into production.

We have productive carambola, canistel, malay apple, thornless jujube, thornless and regular peach palm, cupuasu, jackfruit, black sapote, sapodilla, biriba, breadfruit (local and Ma’afala) avocado, barbados cherry and miracle fruit. Not so productive or just starting include acai, loquat, dragon fruit, fig, okari nut, atemoya and macadamia. Many more types should fruit soon.

Mango - The climate here is wet enough that only the blanc mangos set fruit every year. There are several strains of fil blanc/manga blanca, all stringy, and they set fruit 2-5 times per year, at lest two or 3 branch-bending heavy crops each year. Some are in the markets almost all year. I have some crosses with local and Florida varieties that I look forward to fruiting, will save details for a mango discussion.

The new fruits are spreading in this area and to other parts of Haiti. I hope more tree and perennial gardening will be done in the highly erodible mountains. Erosion from annual and root crops takes a heavy toll on the environment, especiallly on the hills around this valley with over 100 inches of average rainfall per year.

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