The Tropical Fruit Forum

Have you asked Jim recently? This seed sale post is from Jim.
https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=47558.msg461455#msg461455

Yes, I have fruited it here in South Florida.  These trees are dioicous and need male pollen to produce large fruit. A solitary tree can sometimes produce fruit, but they are often small and very few reach maturity.  My 5 flowering trees are almost 10 years old. My 5 flowering trees are female (3% probability). My trees don't produce anything, maybe 5 runts in total, without hand pollination from pollen sourced from a male tree grown by another forum member.  I now have a grafted male planted but that will take years to flower.

I have 3 large 4ft and 5 ft trees in 7gal pots, $150 to $200. These are around 5 years old, maybe they will flower in the year or two.


I have a multiple 3ft and 4 ft trees in 3 gal pots. Some of these were fruited by me. $50 to $75


These are some seedlings that were fruited by me last year.

E4 or M4? E4 was renamed Sugarloaf and stays green when ripe. M4 is a variety that ripens in late July/August and does change color.

Back in the day, Mike was a great resource. I must have bought over a hundred trees from him. I am no longer in acquisition mode but I was curious to see what was around. I think I found something for us Southwest Ranchers and surrounding areas. Bills Tropical Fruit Trees. I spent a good deal of time with Mike and he spoke of a neighbor Bill that bought a bunch of trees and Mike always spoke well of Bill. I have not been to Bill's yet but Bill's is two blocks away from where Bender's Grove is located.

https://g.page/bills-tropical-fruit-trees?share

Looks like mammea americana, definitely not g macrophylla or magnifolia

I don't think a single cherimoya flower cannot pollinate itself. It will be female for a few hours and stop being female during its transition to being male. By the time it produces pollen, it will no longer accept pollen for fruit production. Self-pollination for cherimoya would mean producing fruit without hand pollination or pollination from flowers of the same tree, not a single flower.  For the rubber band to have an effect, the rubber band would need to be applied after pollination.

Click image to zoom in.

https://images.app.goo.gl/c9NivjUXm7dF7gSS6

Those flowers look male to me. If the tree you have is grafted, it may take additional time for it to produce hermaphrodite flowers or it may have been a male variety so growers can plant a pollinator amongst female trees.  Flowers should have a green ovary in the center of each flower that sticks out and looks like a tiny fruit. What is the variety of your tree?

If your tank is higher than the pump and output/spray nozzles, I think you need a valve. My pool pump is below my pool and it certainly requires shutting all the manual values to not gush water everywhere.  I believe above ground irrigation pumps rely on check values to prevent water from escaping downward when the water source is below the spray nozzles.  On the line from the tank, install a manual valve, then a solenoid sprinkler valve if the pump will be run on an automated schedule and keep the manual valve open, then the pump.

I do not have any experience with atemoya on glabra rootstock. The two illama trees I have purchased from Excalibur that were grafted on glabra never survived long. They sucker like crazy. One just died randomly and the other broke at the graft in a storm. Both were 3+ years in the ground before they died, which is a lot of time to waste.  I believe I remember reading or hearing at a lecture that some individual glabra trees produce better rootstocks than others for grafting sugar apple, atemoya and illama.

I have a dream atemoya on sugar apple that grows in damp soil, in the run-off path of my daily overhead watered potted plants. It is doing fine. I have it planted on a 4-6 inch tall mound because the area only has 2 inches of topsoil.

Achachairu and mangosteen do not seem to get sweeter after picking. I have eaten Achachairu 4 weeks after harvest. The skin gets wrinkles but the flavor remains the same.

I ate my first fruit of this batch today. It was predominantly sweet with a tiny bit of sour, extremely delicious. You just have to wait until it gets a bit softer to what you describe as your desired level of sweetness. The longer you wait, the sour will lessen until it is basically sweet with only a bit of acidity on the skin flesh. I planted a grafted male and a flowering female a few weeks ago. I now have 5 trees in the ground.

Maybe your tree will shift to being partially hermaphroditic. My trees have never fruited without hand pollination to my knowledge. I guess it is possible that they self-fruited during one of the times I hand pollinated.  This time I only pollinated the west sides of my trees once to see if things had changed but I only got fruit on the side I pollinated.  I did find fruit this week on an old stunted grafted tree that I did not pollinate. The tree was grafted in 2012 or 2013 with budwood from Raul by a friend. It is less than 4 ft tall.




I also have some "sweetie" and "sharpie" trees grafted 5 years ago that are barely 2 ft tall and just as wide that are flowering.

I have a few trees that are 9 years old that have not fruited yet. Patience is key in this hobby. I have an achachairu that is fruiting for the first time this year that is probably 11 years old and two others the same age that have not fruited.