The Tropical Fruit Forum

Quote from: KarenRei on August 18, 2013, 04:46:28 PM

Could always try it... at least when I had them in my home several years back I found that they went nuts for balsamic vinegar, promptly drowning in it.

Where the **** did you get that?

http://xkcd.com

Geek webcomic 

Could always try it... at least when I had them in my home several years back I found that they went nuts for balsamic vinegar, promptly drowning in it.

If you want an organic spray, you could try Bt.  It's effective on fruit flies (also kills other flies, mosquitoes, caterpillars, and beetles, but no other types of insects).  But you have to spray it regularly.

Wow, that's pretty impressive, western Ukraine gets really cold!  I like the in-ground work - high capital cost, but I'm sure it pays for itself many times over in reduced heating costs in a place like Ukraine!

Hmm, I was initially thinking I didn't have any Sapotaceae (both of the guesses being in that family) - it's not on my list from FruitLovers and while I didn't get a list from Jim West, I don't think he even sells any, let alone me getting any.  But I saw on the email from Roy-Ind, he added some purple starapple to the shipment (Chrysophyllum cainito) - could that be it?  It's a Sapotaceae.  Some of the labels in that shipment were a bit off - there was a bag labeled Jamun with no apparent seeds in it, and a bag with no label which I had assumed was jamun, but maybe was the purple starapple?

1200 W for 24/7? They only need 12 hours of light, that's what they get in the tropics.

Most plants are cycle-insensitive.  24/7 simply means twice as much energy conversion, aka, 24h on 1200W = 12h on 2400W**.  There are some plants that are cycle-sensitive (for example, pineapple), and I'll take care of them specially when they get to fruiting.

** - Actually it's slightly better than that.  It's possible - albeit difficult indoors - to overload a plant's ability to transport sugars from its leaves to the rest of the plant.  The leaves store it instead as starch and reduce their chloroplast concentration, slowing down the rate of photosynthesis.  Half the intensity over twice the period decreases your odds of this happening.

Well those websites i sent are just to show what real equipment looks like

I took a poll of my plants, and 98% of them don't give a whit what my equipment looks like.  The other 2% voted for Pat Buchanan 

That spiderweb of wires hanging around plants and laying on the floor is not dangerous at all.

First off, the one that's on the floor is only there temporarily while the electrician finishes reworking the sockets in the living room.  Secondly, a cord on the ground is not an electrocution risk unless you find a way to sever all the (quite tough, in this case) insulation.  Third, if the concern is "tugging", there's ample give in everything.  The system is suspended from three steel hooks, each attached to the wall with three drywall screws which I page I read that tested different types of drywall anchors says are good for up to 50kg each.  So 450kg of supporting screws holding about 20-30kg of gear and vine.  Strung between them are three lines of synthetic cord that should have a breaking strength in the 300-800kg range, based on their thickness and what I read.  Each individual item is supported by a weaker line, probably in the 100kg ballpark.  So yes, things can take more than a bit of a tug here.  But more importantly, there's flex in all lines.  So a tug doesn't mean an instant jerk.

I missed the pic's of your homegrown fruits though, i only remember something about the barbados cherry. I would like to see an iceland grown mango, that would impress me.

Wait a few years.    Of course the real challenge IMHO will be getting one that *tastes good*.  But the way I look at it, even if the seedlings I'm working on end up tasting like turpentine, I can always in the future try to smuggle in some scion wood from a good cultivar (or go through the big expense and hassle of trying to import some).

I still have no idea what lights you use because you write about a transformer but now i m sure you got the best equipment to grow tropical fruits. I will wait for the pics.

As I said, I moved from the US.  So some fixtures came along as part of my household supplies and some have been acquired over here.  Naturally the 120V US appliances require the use of a transformer - approximately half of my total wattage.  I use a 1500W iron-core transformer, so it's only loaded at about 1/3rd of its rated max.

Nice collection of plants but they are all so young.

1. I only moved to Iceland a year and a half ago.
2. I've already gotten fruit from several of the older ones.

Read this site and learn.

?  I was expecting info sites, but those appear to just be shops selling overpriced grow kits.

The way you play with electricity scares me.

Meaning?  The transformer is off the ground (and shielded from water) and all power strips and lights are well off the ground.  There's been electrician working in the apartment (doing the apartment's main wiring) and he hasn't complained any, so there can't be any serious problems.  I even brought him in and showed him one of the lights to see if he could help out with a problem I was having where one side or the other would shut down randomly, and he made suggestions (the short of it: the person who sold the transformers said they'd work with 32W bulbs, but he thinks they need 36W).

If you decide to use for 1-2000 watt of lights

I have 1200W, on 24-7.

then make sure all electric is professionally installed and protected. Those HP lights even can explode if you spray water on them while burning.

No HP lights here.

If you don;t use real lights then i will be very amazed if you can grow real sweet tropical fruits in iceland.

Well, given that I already have, go ahead and be very amazed.  And if you don't take my word for it, you can take my boyfriends, his mother's, his sister's, one of my friends, and my landlady's two daughters, all of whom I've shared with.

Quote from: KarenRei on August 17, 2013, 10:51:23 AM

Nah, I'm not a big fan of standalone greenhouses, too much hassle.  Though I plan to build a house (as soon as I can find land in the countryside near Reykjavík that's possible to build on  - grumble grumble) that will have some serious greenhouse attitude to it 

Hard to beat an attached greenhouse on a southern facing wall.  I built one, painted the garage wall white and grew the heck out of orchids.  If you ever do build highly recommend Palram Polycarbonate covering.  You'll probably need at least triple wall.  I'd supplement "winter light" with HPS.    Both HPS and MH are full spectrum lamps, just a little "light" in some ares of the spectrum but plants don't seem to care.  PAR values are over-rated, mainly a marketing tool to sell conversion lamps, hoods, "full spectrum" lamps, etc.

Winter light?  What's that?    Lol

(Nah, we do get some light even at the solstice... but very little direct light, it's mostly just "dim" for 7 hours or so.

Hope you don't mind if I make some recommendations regarding light?  As you know, all flowering and fruiting plants need a lot of light.  You're buying light and that's all that counts in this indoor biz efficiency.   Ever thought of going with HID's, 600W HPS and/or 1,000W MH (high pressure sodium, metal halide)?  You'll get more bang for your buck as they are quite efficient and if you choose a small well designed,  highly reflective horizontal hood (no parabolics please) they will direct high light where you need it.

The data that I've seen suggests that HIDs and fluroescents are roughly the same efficiency concerning PAR.  Now, capital costs for HIDs are generally a lot cheaper per watt, but... well, I'll put it another way.  The last 350 watts I added to my setup?  The total cost was... zero.    Hard to beat that!

LED's are even more efficient but costly if your budget is limited.

Yeah, and getting 230V LEDs over here is a lot more expensive than even you're used to paying for LEDs.  I really like them, but I just can't justify the cost.

The heat from HID's should really work in your favor.

Oh, heat's no problem, it's like a jungle in there, especially high up!    Felt like I stepped into the amazon when I was working on the ladder, haha.

Good luck! What you're doing is too "cool".   

Hehe, thanks! 

Nice collection! You've got quite the array I've never seen any other cold-climate tropical grower have. Love the Santol and Marang, rarely see people grow those. The photo of which one should guess on looks like a banana leaf to me.

Aw, I guess it was too easy - yeah, it's a look down the center of a new leaf.  Five points to you 

So I recently moved from Hafnarfjörður to the 112 district of Reykjavík, where I'm renting converted (well, 80%-finished-being-converted) industrial space as an apartment.  I chose the place because it's cheap, concrete floors, and ridiculously high ceilings for my plants.  Tonight I finished moving my plants into their home.  So, let's begin the tour!  Note: most plants I show I have multiple of, but I'm not going to bother taking a pic of every last one, lol 

First, the grow area (I could expand it threefold if necessary without impinging on my living area, and I'm only using about  70% of the area I've cordoned off):



To give a sense of its height:



A couple glances around:





... and up:





Now, on to the species.

Cape Gooseberry (Physalis peruvianis; Icelandic: blæjuber ("breezeberry")).  Basically a weed.  Was my first plant to have fruit reach maturity in Iceland, although my passionfruit and mango tried but failed earlier; I've gotten a few dozen off of them.  Stems break easily and it litters leaves, but everything it loses grows back twofold.  Never had a single pest on them, even spider mites.




Jamaican dwarf red banana (Musa acuminita.  Icelandic: banani).  All bananas seem to grows great indoors - just give them rich soil and tons of water.  The red has especially beautiful coloration.  Indoor bananas occasionally gets spider mites, but rarely a threat to the tree's life even if they go undetected for a while.  Also, note the last picture - I'm not sure what these are, but I saw them next to some spider mite webbing while photographing. 








Tamarind (Tamarindus indica.  Icelandic: none).  Pretty much minds its own business and grows at a moderate pace, I've never had problems with it.  I did however while doing closeups find a couple leaves (below) which had some mottling - possibly a fungus of some sort?  Doesn't seem to be a problem for any of my tamarinds as a whole, at least thusfar.




Acerola / barbados cherry (Malpighia emarginata.  Icelandic: none).  While this shot is a bit close in, the tree is huge - the main branch kinda droops, but if I keep it upright, the tree is about 3 meters tall.  It's fruited for me.  You can see it flowering here.  Low maintenance, fast growing, well suited for indoor gardening.



Dwarf cavendish banana (same species as the Jamaican Red): I actually picked this one up in Iceland, lol - the only fruiting tropical I've managed to find here.  People have indeed fruited bananas here - although contrary to widely reported myth, we're not "the largest banana grower in Europe" (that'd be Spain; bananas here have only been grown on an experimental basis, not commercially).



Passionfruit (Passiflora edulis; Icelandic: ástaraldin (lit: "lovefruit")): I forget which variety, and I don't remember the color of the flower, sadly!    I'll pay more attention the next time around    Grows quite well - the only pest problem I've ever had was a small amount of scale at one point, but the scale didn't really seem to thrive on it.  I wonder if it's aided by the sticky droplets it exudes at the base of each leaf?



Coffee (Coffea arabica.  Icelandic: kaffi).  Moderate-speed grower, generally pest free, likes moist soil but will tolerate dry, likes light but will tolerate shade... quite the little trooper    I had one actually get to flowering back when I lived in Iowa, but it was obviously too large to take with, I had to give it away.  But I think some of mine here are nearing flowering size, so I've got my fingers crossed. 




Pitaya / Dragonfruit (Hylocereus sp.; Icelandic: drekaávöxtur): Iceland has a region called the Dragon Zone (Drekasvæðið), where lots of oil has been found offshore.  Now I have my own "Dragon Zone"  in my grow area.   Dragonfruit grows well indoors, although not always super-fast.  Its tiny roots mean not much of a potting requirement.  Sometimes pieces break off, but that simply means you get more dragonfruit plants - they're trivial to root, you pretty much just have to drop them on some moist soil and leave them alone for a couple weeks.  And they're generally pretty carefree.




Longan (Dimocarpus longan; Icelandic: none): New seedlings, so I'm still learning. 



Spítalinn ("The Hospital"): High-light area for sick plants in need of extra nourishment.  There's a couple caryodendron sp. lurking in the back that are not at all sick, just freeloaders.



Cocona (Solanum sessiliflorum; Icelandic: none): Thusfar I've mostly had good things to say about plants indoors.  Cocona... not so much.  It's nearly died on me several times.  It'd be a great indoor plant except it's *highly* susceptible to spider mites.  I've taken to power washing the leaves every time I water and treating the leaves it as though it's a given that there's spider mites there.  And what do you know, at long last, flower buds!    Thanks cocona!




Let's move onto the shelves, where the smaller plants are.  But before we get there, where do they come from?  Well, this box:



And sometimes these trays as well:




Except the shelf on the far right, that's Sóttkví (quarantine)    The lemon verbena on the left had scale and the moringa on the right had a nearly-lethal spider mite infestation (it's another highly vulnerable species).



But anyway, new seedlings come to the bottom shelf until they've got leaves out:



Dwarf inchi (Caryodendron sp.; Icelandic: none).  You saw some of its fully-germinated siblings in the hospital view.  Inchi produces an edible nut, reportedly quite tasty.  The tree is rare in cultivation so it's hard to find information about!



Guanabana (Annona muricata; Icelandic: none, but I've seen people sharing "graviola" health links on Facebook, so it'll probably end up as "gravíóla").  In order, shelf 1, 2, 4





Rollinia / biriba (Rollinia deliciosa; Icelandic: none).  Oh, I can sooo not wait for fruit    In order, shelf 1, 2, 2, 4






A couple rollinia, a couple Red Strawberry Guava (Psidium littorale; Icelandic: gúava), and a OH MY GOD WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?  Lol, I have no clue - sadly, I can't read my handwriting on the label on this one.  Well, time will tell if this strange creature survives.   



Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus: Icelandic: none).  Don't know much about raising them, but they germinate well!    Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of my larger jacks - oh well!



Pentagonia (Pentagonia grandifolia; Icelandic: none): Oh, I really hope at least one of these makes it.  They produce a fascinating-looking flower/fruit structure, but I've lost more of then than I care to admit to damping off.  :Þ



Second shelf: seedlings with newly opened true leaves and otherwise small seedlings.



Bael (Aegle marmelos: Icelandic: none, but I have to keep resist spelling it Bæl with an "æ"    ): Good germination rate even though the seeds weren't super-fresh.  Never tried the fruit but I've seen people both rave about it and hate it.



Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum; Icelandic: risafura (lit: "giant pine")): Okay, not a tropical, although it does have limited cold tolerance!  Biggest tree in the world, in baby pictures.  I hope to end up with 30 of them and I'm hoping at least one or two will survive the climate here. 



Western Redcedar (Thuja plicatia; Icelandic: rísalífviður (lit: "giant life wood")): Okay, even *less* of a tropical, but... basically, a fallback plan.  Gets to about 2/3rds the height and 2/3rds the width of a sequoia, but still a massive tree, and more importantly, adapted to cold climates.  But man, these seedlings are delicate.



And this one is... is... dang, I don't know, because the builder moved these seedlings when they were on the ground and didn't move their label with them!  :þ  If anyone has a guess, let me know! 



Blackberry Jam Fruit (Randia formosa; Icelandic: none).  Has little, neat-looking seeds.  Supposedly tastes like blackberry jam.  We'll find out!



Papayuelo (Carica goudotiana): Has neater-looking seeds.  Seriously, the seeds are like tiny kiwano melons    While the plant is related to papaya, I really hope it tastes better than papaya! 



Dabai (Canarium odontophyllum; Icelandic: none): Supposedly tastes a bit like avocado, but you have to soak it first.  I'm definitely curious. 



Third shelf: power converter, gardening supplies, seedlings in oversized pots, and salak.



Red Salak (Salacca affinis; Icelandic: none): Salak (aka, snakefruit) is a really alien-looking plant at all stages of life, but especially when young.  Someone posted a thread recently about how they germinate, involving sticking a plug out, which then gets branching spindly roots.  Then it pushes a column up, then the column puts out a tall spine... eventually it'll become leaves, supposedly   



Bali Salak (Salacca zalacca var bali; Icelandic: none): I really hope that the "spine" here is supposed to be brown and woody for bali salak, because it's green and lifelike for all my S. affinis, but brown and woody for all my S. zalacca.



Fourth shelf: moderate-sized young seedlings



"SL sapote" (Matisia sp.: Icelandic: none).  Supposedly fruits like jaboticaba, but with 8cm fruit with scant pulp.  I've been having a problem with some of them losing leaves to what appears to be a fungus (see the below pics); any tips would be appreciated!





This carnivorous plant was another store purchase.  Sadly, they didn't list the species.  :Þ



Pomegranate (Punica granatum; Icelandic: granatepli): I treat them so badly but they keep trying 



Marang (Artocarpus odoratissimus; Icelandic: none): Oh I so can't wait to try this fruit... same genus as jackfruit, but often said to be even better.



Herrania (Herrania sp.; Icelandic: none): A relative of chocolate.  Fruits in a similar manner.  Another fruit I really look forward to trying. 



Yoco (Paulinia yoco; Icelandic: none): Both the plants in the foreground and background are yoco - young leaves are reddish.  A relative of guarana, with very high caffeine content.  Vining, so that'll work out nice for me, it's easy to find space for vines and they're good at intercepting "lost light".



And now, for the top shelf:

Pineapple (Ananas comosus; Icelandic: annanas): Just a rooted supermarket pineapple.  But hey, it's a start 



Guava (like above): I've got an older guava here as well.  Started growing slow but has really picked up the pace as of late.  Minor to moderate mite susceptibility.  I gave it a nice place by an LED light because I'd really like to get it to fruiting to find out just what variety of guava it is!




Vanilla (Vanilla planifolia; Icelandic: vanilla): My prior experience with them says they're quite susceptible to root rot and grow slowly while young.  I've got three this time around, hopefully at least one will make it 



Santol (Sandoricum koetjape; Icelandic: none): First pick is my biggest but weird-looking santol.  The next pic is a smller but regular one.  And the third is what they look like when germinating - kind of weird, the seed comes up, then stops, then the plant comes out the side.





And of course, I've got probably about 10 species which have germinated but not yet come out of the ground (jaboticaba, a couple really lucky miracle fruit, cabelluda, jamun, a number of eugenia and garcinia sp., etc) and another 10 or so which haven't yet germinated (as far as I know) - macadamia, cola, nutmeg, etc.

Finally, just a couple random pics to wrap up 

1) First person to guess what this is a picture of gets five Karen Points:



2) My supplies.  Though I still need to fetch my container (~10kg) of micro and macronutrients. 



3) Icelandic hose fixtures are totally incompatible with US ones.  It's nice having a spigot in my plant room! 

Heh, luckily power here is like... oh, it varies, and it's hard to figure out all the fees and stuff combined, but something like 5 cents per kWh on average.  When I build my home I may be able to get it even cheaper.  And it's all clean power too - something like 99.8% of Iceland's power is either hydro or geo.  While I'm not a big hydro fan, at least here in the Reykjavík area it's predominantly geo (esp. from the Hellisheiði plant); the big hydro plants are generally built for the aluminum industry.  Geo is my favorite form of power, it's hard to think of anything else that has so low environmental impact per kilowatt hour that doesn't involve the word "rooftop" 

Haha, I'll keep an eye out for the capybara.  It's all fine so long as I don't get caimans too!    Oh, and I gladly wear the label of crazy plant lady!

Maybe some day I'll contribute the plants for Eden II.  Eden was a very large greenhouse in Hveragerði full of all kinds of exotic plants (though not generally as exotic as mine, hehe    ), as well as some animals like talking parrots, a monkey, etc, which was open to the public.  Very popular, lots of people came to see the tropics so far north.  However, it went bankrupt, lots of people were concerned, so everyone breathed a sigh of relief when a new investor stepped up to the plate, got the money for it, reoopened it.... and then literally just a couple weeks later a fire broke out and the whole thing burned to the ground, killing all the plants and animals inside.  Everyone was heartbroken (and it really sucked for Hveragerði, that was their biggest tourist attraction).  They had no fire insurance, so it was never rebuilt.  But there's always talk about getting together funds from a variety of public and private sources to achieve it.  I expect they'll pull it off one of these days, especially with how the tourism industry keeps on growing.   

Just recently I sent an email to someone in the city building office in Hveragerði who I'd seen an article about trying to get the funds for Eden that if they ever do rebuild it, I'll have lots of plants to help them with, and more to the point, if it's open free to the public, my plants would be free as well.

I can always grow more 

Dwarf coconuts? I have never seen one in my life!  Maybe, I will see one in the South Pacific area. Maybe in Fiji, Tonga, or Samoa.  In Florida, coconuts sold as dwarf coconuts are not dwarf coconuts.  They start producing fruits when young, but they keep growing..........and growing.

There's a couple threads about it here, one from not that long ago:

http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=6526.0

The Fiji / Samoan dwarf is a true dwarf, and is large-fruited to boot.  You're probably used to the Malay dwarf, which is like you say - they start producing young (small coconuts), but will still get quite big.

Oh, and if you find a source, could I pay you to send me one?  I tried emailing and leaving a phone message with the source in the linked thread, but the email bounced and my call never got returned.  :Þ

Thanks!  Though that's far from all my plants, lol,just one corner of the room. 

And yep, that's a yellow-headed Amazon.  It's just one of those things... you grow a banana tree, once it gets to a certain size, a parrot just shows up.  I understand that if it gets to fruiting I'll also end up with a toucan, two iguanas, and a capuchin.