The Tropical Fruit Forum

I have not ordered from them, but a few times from other german vendors with tons of seeds. I got to germinate a lot of acacia and eucalyptus seeds, but 0% germination rate with fruit seeds, like annonas, spondias...

I problem with those seeds is the long transit time. As Oscar said, they first come from other continents, then arrive in Germany and much later arrive the customer. So I guess in a best case scenario the seeds arrive the customer after 4 weeks after picking...

I'm not sure why, but mealybugs are a super-common pest down here in Aruba. I recently had to decimate nice big shade-throwing barbados cherry (called 'shimaruku' in Papiamento, FYI) because it was completely infested. I've been doing a bunch of pesticide spraying to get it under control, but I would love to have a better, less nasty way to keep these critters in check.

Oils and soaps are fine, and work ok, but what I'm really interested in is beneficial organisms, like the mealybug destroyer beetle.

Here's a place that sells them:
www.associatesinsectary.com/mealybug_destroyer.aspx

Has anyone out there ever used anything like this? It seems almost too good to be true that you could get a bunch of beetles to take up residence in your yard that would then patrol for pests for you.

we have access to refractometers right here in town.

truthfully, the exact total of soluble minerals and sugars in the fruit is of no concern to me at this point (as it can depend greatly upon cultural conditions). What really matters to me is the amount of complaints associated with the signature resinous taste of common piitanga fruits.

im convinced the strain that "Roberts red" descends from, is one with a uniquely palatable taste.

In my oppinion there are no dwarf coconuts.  However, people refer to coconuts as being dwarf because some varieties start bearing fruits after 2 years of being planted.  I used to grow the yellow "dwarf"; the red "dwarf"; and the green "dwarf".  I prefer the green one.  The water from the green one is sweeter to me.  Currently, I still have a couple green malay and one yellow coconut tree. 
The so called "dwarf" coconuts reach 10 to 12 meters high.  If I had to plant only one variety, I would choose the green malay "dwarf"
In Brasil, an improved green malay "dwarf" variety bears the first crop with the fruits touching the ground.

Jua Acu is a nice fruit from the solanacea family, another rare brasilian fruit!

Quote from: fruitlovers on April 13, 2012, 11:07:46 PM

I would have thought that with all the work done on mango in Florida there would be some standardization of rootstocks used?

Turpentine has been the preferred stock for a variety of reasons and the overwhelming majority of mangoes commercially grafted in Florida since the early 20th century have been grafted to turpentine.

Since Har worked with Zill I'd be curious to know if there was much deviation at all in the stocks being used. Another thing to consider is that turpentine doesn't always come true to seed, so I'm sure there's some variation in that regard as well.