Despite the warning about the post being >120d old, I thought I ll give it a chance
I bumped on this thread probably a little too late. But since this seems like a success story from people who managed to get (the best ever) fruit I tried, here is a previous thread of mine for some intro:
https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=52858.0But I ll re-write a quick overview here again, so that its not a case of 'copy n paste'
I extracted the seeds from fruits that I bought (late August 2023) in a market in Borneo
The seeds were planted at 14th September
The soil mixture was 50% compost + 50% coco coir (coconut fibre). Plus a thin moss layer at the top (just for retaining moisture)
The first plant sprouted 6th October (3wks later). Soon more plants spouted within following week or so. Out of the initial 22 seeds, 16 sprouted
Initial growth was good. All 16 plants were inside one smaller pot. Just over a month later, it became apparent that I needed to split them. So I devided the plants into 4 pots. The rate of growth continued for a while more (around late December), at which point the first signs of blackening (dark spots at the edge of some leafs) occurred. That gradually started to get worse, with most of the plants losing leafs
The plants were always place next to the window. Whenever there was sun, they got it. Watering varied over time. Once every 3 days at the beginning, and lately once every 5 days (as I was testing that soil was already moist and was afraid of over watering
Have two concerns. The first is why the blackening/fall of leafs and the 2nd is that the rate of growth has almost stopped
Unfortunately, the state of my plants looks like this today:
All 16 of them still survive (some of which barely hanging on..)
As you can probably compare from back then, the rate of growth is almost zero
I now begin to realize that the problem of my plants getting black spots in their leafs, dropping leafs, slowly dying - is not the watering frequency
But more likely the soil. Even though I migrated the 16 plants from their birth-pot to 4 pots, I would image that they now exhausted all nutrients (even though there are 'only' 4 of them per pot)
I have already bought enough pots to put each plant into a seperate pot (which is a real challenge, as I live in a small apartment and there are only few spots left by the window, where they could get some sun). On a sunny day, they could get 5 or more hours of weak Bavarian sun (but probably that what it keeps them alive!)
My current soil mixture is 50% compost, 50% coco coir plus a thin layer of moss at the top, for retaining humidity
I am about to buy soil for the next big migration. Should I stick to the above recipe, or does any of you guys think that I should prep a different mixture in order to give these plants a chance?
I mean, I don't know what future these plants could possibly have in my room. Ceiling is like 2.5m tall. Even if I somehow manage to keep these alive (here in Munich!) my expectation of them flowering/fruiting a close to zero. But I want to keep them alive as much I possibly can. These plants have high emotional value to me
