2017 Cherimoyas

[simon_grow]

How's everyone's Cherimoyas doing this year? I hand pollinated and got too much fruit set so I thinned out about 70% of the fruit. This is the picture before I thinned. By keeping too much fruit, the size is much smaller and the quality decreases significantly because there is more seed and skin and less flesh. Sorry about the blurry pictures.







Simon

[Zafra]

I've got my very first cherimoya on my seedling el Bumpo, my first hand pollination effort was a success! yippie! - it's just around baseball size, I think. Question - is it a good idea to fertilize during fruit development?

[behlgarden]

I am getting decent fruit set too, although my season starts about a month behind yours and fruits are pea size right now. Should have a decent season as compared to 2 lost seasons that I want to forget.

[Delvi83]

Congratulation...plant seems very healthy

[simon_grow]

I've got my very first cherimoya on my seedling el Bumpo, my first hand pollination effort was a success! yippie! - it's just around baseball size, I think. Question - is it a good idea to fertilize during fruit development?

I like to use 0-10-10 to size up the fruit and I also give a separate micro nutrient package to keep the tree healthy.

Behl, hopefully this season will be a lot better. I'm keeping some of the top canopy to shade the fruit so they don't get sunburnt. If we get hot dry winds like the last couple years, much of the crop will be lost.

Thanks Delvi,

Simon

[SoCal]

Nice looking fruits Simon, what varieties do you have? I need to thin out mine as well. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow.

-Allan

[simon_grow]

Hey Allan,

I have Behl, Booth, Dr White, Leo Hybrid #3, Selma, Honeyhart, El Bumpo, Orton, Rudy H, Spain and maybe a couple other grafts I forgot about. Some of my varieties are really small grafts and I only have two trees and another replacement tree because I might take out or top work my big tree.

Simon

[AnnonaMangoLord45]

Here is my cherimoya tree, how would you guys rate it as far as healthiness go, I pruned all the leaves in march

[Samu]

As far as healthiness go: that looks like a very healthy young tree, good job taking care of it!

Maybe someone else would give you different advice, but if it were my tree,
I would prune all those leggy branches hard, about 2/3 of them. I know it's sound very drastic, but cherimoya is a very vigorous grower in Southern California, it'll make your tree bushier and rounder (thus: more fruits); so the branches will be stronger, and as was already mentioned, easier to pollinate the flowers in the future.

My trees are behind also, compared to Simon's; the largest fruits are only about the size of a mandarin/tangerine. Here are some of my annona photos:

Dr. White (Thanks to Simon for the scion!):


El bumpo (Wondering what caused the fruit to "deformed" like that?):


Orton (Prolific producer):


African pride atemoya (On this particular tree, I had very low percentage of pollination taking in the first few weeks of flowering this season; as well as the previous 2 years):

[simon_grow]

Here is my cherimoya tree, how would you guys rate it as far as healthiness go, I pruned all the leaves in march

I agree with Sam that your tree is much too tall. I would actually take it down to about 18-22 inches which means all the branches and leaves would be removed. If you do head it back, just make sure it's above the graft or make sure you have scions to graft onto it. If you leave it as is, it will be very difficult to hand pollinate, bag, harvest and spray the fruit and tree.

Simon

[behlgarden]

on young cherimoya trees I force branching around 12" and at every 12" max. that gives excellent canopy in the 5 to 6 feet manageable height

[Ethan]

Nice photos, those are some beautiful fruits!

[SoCal]

Here's pictures of my cherimoya collection and a couple other annonas: El bumpo, Pierce, Fino de jete, Chaffey, Honey heart, Geffner atemoya with African pride and Lisa grafts and a soursop.  I apologize for the bad pictures.

-Allan

[AnnonaMangoLord45]

How did you get such a beautiful soursop tree?

[SoCal]

How did you get such a beautiful soursop tree?

thanks, I got this guy about 3 years ago in a 3 gallon from Seafood City. The tag says Champa nursery in El Monte. I have been babying this guy since (putting it in the garage when temp. drops
below 50 degrees). I consider soursop as the most challenging tropical plant that I have to get to fruit. We'll see, hopefully, in a couple more years.

[AnnonaMangoLord45]

Mines is in the ground and also looks beautiful, but it hasnt established, just inching away currently, with 6 hours of sunlight under a small loquat tree for protection, I also have a 2nd soursop seedling that I just planted 2 months ago. I also have a Rollinia seedling Here are the pics, are they healthy enough? Should I speed up the growth or let them grow their own pace. My cherimoya also has black spots on the younger lower leaves, whats causing that?  Thanks, Matt

[SoCal]

All the plants pictured looks healthy. My soursop was not much bigger than yours when I got it. Since yours is in the ground; make sure that you protect it in the winter time. When did you plant it? It should have enough time to get established before it gets cold. Don't over do the fertilizer, specially, the small seedlings. You can do more harm than good.

[Guayaba]

Here are my first little Annonas.  It looks like mine are a little young compared to many others posted.  I had a similar situation that Sam had and none of the flowers produced pollen in June, but by July pollen was detected when I collected it for hand pollination.  I  hope some of these hold fruit through summer!

Vietnamese Cherimoya


African Pride Atemoya


African Pride Atemoya

[AnnonaMangoLord45]

I planted the soursop last september, was defoliated when I dug it up, its recovered real nicely, and I fertilize with osmocote to be on the safe side and giving them a head start

[Johnny Redland]

I have a question about hand pollination of custard apple or soursop, which from what I've read should be similar to Cherimoya.  I've found that my male flowers (first year flowering) don't have any pollen on them that can be brushed off. Not even a small amount.  Could this be due to the torrential rains we've been having that wash the pollen off or does a young tree flower but produce no pollen until it further matures?

-Jon