The Tropical Fruit Forum

No papaya is really red but some have orange skin and are pinkish orange inside. What I like is in the solo style but some seem to ne improved on the basic solo model with a bit more flavour, no hollow, a bit more colour and a little firmer. I do like the long reds and some of the newer varieties hitting the market with just letters and numbers for names. The pictured one is the one I like best of the ones I grow and the fruit are quite small and egg shaped.

It has been a week of jackfruit and chempedak overload for me chums. I had a few ripe ones on my trees and received plenty from other sources also. A trip to the jackfruit farm today had ne sampling numerous varies of jacks, chempas and crosses. My advice is don't eat more than 10 or 11lbs in a week and don't eat more than 2 or 3lbs of flesh in a sitting or you will feel totally tanked up like I am at the moment.
A chance hybrid of timor red jack and chempedak was a real surprise and stood out from the pack. It is a high producing dwarf with firm, zesty flesh of terrific lemony and fruity taste. It was super easy to peel by hand and almost latex free. A real winner and the well known farming family is justifiably very happy with fruit tree. Even though I had consumed too much fruit I found the room to go that little bit further and sample this one. I need one of these trees.


Here is a tree with the farmer


They are small trees which fruit quickly.


The fruit are in the 2kg range consistently with big bulbs.

A few years ago a Brazilian contact offered me seeds of his prize dwarf heavy bearing white jaboticaba. I gladly relieved him of some and planted all the seeds in one big pot.One of the resulting seedlings was different and grew much faster. I suspected it was a cross or just healthier for some other reason and I nurtured and planted this. The rest of the pot of seedlings I gave to a farmer friend so they live productive lives. The resulting row of trees were indeed dwarf white jabs on his farm and are fabulously productive with lovely fruit.Oddly enough two of his dwarf whites had red fruit. AXP red dwarf I will call that as I suspect some phitrantha crossing has occurred.
Meanwhile my much larger semi dwarf I guess we will call it at home hadn't fruited. It took it 4 and a half years or so but it was worth the wait. It fruits often and heavily and fruit have great taste. They are usually extra large but a bit smaller at the moment because it has been so dry.

Here are some fruit and as I said they are usually much larger. This one has earned the name AXP as it is almost certainly a white x phitrantha but not a full dwarf.

This morning while checking out what is around the parks and streets and monitoring where things are at some fruit were collected. othing special was seen.



Some G.dulcis and achachairus were around and look alright.





A roadside Garcinia caught my eye and it was unlike he dulcis and xanthochymus trees I had been looking at an hour earlier. It had big leaves that really hung down.







And fruit also



Wow these fruit are really good and better than other dulcis I have tried being sweet and peach like.This is how dulcis got its name the elusive truly sweet dulcis. A lucky find from a seeds out a car window maybe 30 years ago.It wasn't planted and is competing with native trees for sun and space.

Suddenly on cue in late Spring the mangoes and lychees have begun o appear. There isn't much choice yet and $Aus 4 to $8/kg is rude. When sobriety in pricing arrives I would still rather pick them from the park around the corner. I still bough a few Sam Ru Du mangoes.




Mangoes look ok. Bu lychees below are picked too green and FZS is double he price of tai so - Mauritius

https://www.daleysfruit.com.au/fruit%20pages/lychee.htm

On offer at some nurseries in eastern Australia are a number of new improved varieties. Here is an example where premium varieties are much more expensive to buy.There is much more going on than just erdon lee and seedless and this nursery seems to be dropping quite a few older varieties and doesn't even have fai zee siu. I am sure the same will will happen in California and Florida very soon and this could be a glimpse of the near future. Surprisingly they don' have 4 or 5 excellent varieties some other nurseries have.

With a good crop of ripe fruit flying foxes took an interests a net was place over the tree but not secured at the top all the way around.


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Last night flying foxes pulled the net most off and feasted.It is properly secured now and it takes some effort to minimize losses to wildlife.

If I ever said a bad word about Annona reticulata I take it all back.This Russell's Selection is the best I have ever tried Sweet, grit free and of excellent taste. I also stumbled across a loaded Bernie's Tamarind.They taste like tamarind grannie Smith and a hint of tomato. A good mornings find.

While I may have been tentative with buying in to moon gardening I am keeping an open mind with musical gardening.
https://sciencing.com/does-music-affect-plant-growth-4596442.html
https://pistilsnursery.com/blogs/journal/music-and-plant-growth-heres-what-the-science-says
There actually seems to be some science supporting the notion that music can help plants grow. They seem to prefer more tranquil genres that heavy metal or say hip hop.

I mentioned Allelopathy in another thread and thought it is worth talking about as an issue. The word has been around for 160 years or so and it relates to plants acting badly towards their neighbours. Some plants wilfully engage in chemical warfare to poison other plants, inhibit germination, ruin the soil and soil organisms for other plants (and this can last years). They can use their roots to stretch out and do the dirty work and it can be in their leaves and plants can even switch up or down the production rate depending on how much the individual is willing to invest.
Ever had a spot where nothing grows and you cant figure out why? Sometimes its because an allelopathic plants messed up the spot a long while ago. So which are these anti-social plants? Invasive weeds use this strategy to dominate with lantana a prime example and trees like Black Walnut are famous for it. Rice and peas also engage in this kinda behaviour. But what about fruit trees?

https://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=ajps.2013.252.261
There is plenty of evidence and a growing list of problematic plants. Extracts from some fruit tree leaves can actually be used like herbicides. Mangoes ,lychees, passionfruit and strawberry/cherry guavas have all been implicated and had the finger pointed at them.
So what does this mean for the home garden? Should we keep other plants distant from these? I think the jury is out.

You may remember me talking about Erdon Lee lychees before like the ones in my hand here. They sure are big and of high quality but so few trees are in circulation yet that getting a tree of my own has been difficult.
The Jumbo Seedless lychee is equally glamorous being a crisper type described as having a long shelf life and of excellent taste with a hint of pineapple.
The eagle has landed and I have Seedless and an Erdon Lee marcot after much effort. I don't know if I have enough room for both and I might be a fraction too warm for them so they might fruit only erratically as I need to get below 10c regularly in winter. I don't seem to be able to post pics in this response at the moment but will show you what I have.

I recently tried several dragonfruit that are heavy producing self fertile types with very rich taste profiles and they are sweet. Better than Physical graffiti, condor and American beauty? I have tried them and new ones seem better in many respects. 1kg fruit are not uncommon with these ones. Three are 2 or three others with purple skin or flesh that seem very good and I like the fruit from Jim West's yellow Ecuadorian also. Looks like back yard breeders are doing some good crosses.

A few years ago I shared some plants with friends of Membrillos which I has grown from seeds received from Jim West in Ecuador. Now they are flowering and being appreciated for both flowers and being a handsome tree I am getting enquiries as to the taste of the fruit. Having never tried the fruit I'd thought some of the seasoned campaigners here may have the answers I need as published info is hazy. I think I should have kept one for myself.