Luc's Mexican Garcinia growing experiences around the world

[fruitlovers]

Have some trees at same time as flushing leaf growth also flowering very heavily. But looks like most of the flowers are males.

Looks very happy though! Hopefully your other trees will produce a more balanced flower ratio.
How old are they now more or less, just guessing the pictured one is about 6ft tall?

12+ years old and over 9 feet tall.

[fruitlovers]

Oscar, your trees may be appreciating the different growing conditions, and vegetating longer before fruiting.

Wouldn't be surprised to see yours going off and start mass producing soon.

Sure hope so! They've flowered several years now, but have made very few fruits. I thought at first it was due to too much rain, but not am thinking that i have too many male trees.

[Mike T]

My 12 footer never had a flower and the fruiting ones don't set many. They look like they are monoecious to me.

[fruitlovers]

My 12 footer never had a flower and the fruiting ones don't set many. They look like they are monoecious to me.

Not so sure yet. I have 2 out of 4 trees that have flowered but never set fruits. Also Raul told me that in Mexico there are lone trees that never fruit.

[kalan]

Flowers have started opening. Over 100 female flowers have opened and only 2 males. Hoping the headlines I have been seeing about a single donor fathering dozens can apply. I have also observed that sex can be determined by the shape before the flower opens. Males are round and females are an upside-down pear shape. I see ants on the flowers. If the wind is not blowing, I can smell the flowers. I am not a smell the flowers type of guy but it reminds me of gardenias.   

Here are flowers before they opened showing the two shapes. Left is male and right is female.


Here are the same flowers the next day.

So far all female flowers for me too. Waiting on a couple more to open, but not holding out much hope.
I have two more tress same size and age, so looks like I'm back waiting out another season.

[FlyingFoxFruits]

my tree makes only androgynous and i've never seen a male bloom on it...and they all set fruits, and they grow up to about the size of a bean, or large pea, and drop off...i've had like 20 fruit set and drop off this year...just a waiting game...it will figure it out one day.

[Mike T]

I think you can select from one of about 30 genders on your passport application. Maybe some of the seeds chose non-conventional genders when they exited Mexico.

[fruitlovers]

I think you can select from one of about 30 genders on your passport application. Maybe some of the seeds chose non-conventional genders when they exited Mexico.

Yes garcinias are very strange about their genders, and some are asexual, like the mangosteens.

[Mike T]

My Russell's sweet has been having dysphoria issues of late. I have noted that most places that have them seem to have just females and even a row of them in one spot and hence problems with problems with production. It seems seeds grow more females than males unless the gender imbalance I have observed is a coincidence. I made sure I had a confirmed grafted male which was planted next o my female. Yes the flowers on it are all male. My female had some fruit and I checked the flowers and they were female.It stopped fruiting now all the flowers are male. I will have to go and get female budwood to be grafted on to it. It became male one season after it swapped genders and the seeds grew from the fruit.

[sclateria]

Here's my Luc's, acquired from Marco at E-jardim recently.

[cbss_daviefl]

A new set of flowers are starting to open. I am going out at around 5pm hoping to find a male so I can hand pollinate. This is day three and no males yet. I have identified a few males based on shape, like a squashed ball. I found a few bees working the flowers. I think they were there for the nectar. I see no pollen on their legs.

[canito 17]

second year, no fruit set

[TropicalFruitHunters]

Brandon...are the open flowers in your pics females?  Males just not open?

[cbss_daviefl]

Even though my flowers have stamen, my trees have not fruited without external assistance, when I got pollen from a mostly male tree and hand pollinated.  My theory is that these are false stamen for attracting pollinators. My trees produce hundreds of flowers but only a very small number of male flowers. The flowers open over a period of a week or more.

Brandon...are the open flowers in your pics females?  Males just not open?

[cbss_daviefl]

Today I found 3 flowers that were not female. Garcinia pollen is microscopic so I can't tell if these are breeders or not. I found a study of Garcinia pollen and they used 400x to 9500x magnification to study the pollen.

One looks as I would expect. Maybe the stamen count is low.



These two have stigma and style but no ovary.

[BR]

How do y'all keep your garcinias happy? I have a few planted out, some on irrigation some not, all around 3ft tall. My understanding is mine are at the size when they should start growing like crazy, but they basically haven't done anything the last 6 months. Any tips?

[wonderfruit]

I am growing 2 in soil in south Florida with mulch . And many in containers. In containers look happier.

[Mike T]

I shared some of Raul's seedlings with people in North Queensland and 4 trees at a friend's place are doing their thing. The fastest of these took 3 years to flower and 4 to fruit and the others one year longer.

[fruitlovers]

I shared some of Raul's seedlings with people in North Queensland and 4 trees at a friend's place are doing their thing. The fastest of these took 3 years to flower and 4 to fruit and the others one year longer.

I'd say those are incredibly fast fruiting times. Most people in USA, especially ones living outside of the tropics, can reasonably expect to wait twice that long for fruiting.

[cbss_daviefl]

Mike, that picture is awesome.  I wonder if at least one of the 4 trees is mostly male.

Two of my trees are flowering heavily. Dozens of honey bees are working the flowers all day long. There are other insects also. If I don't get fruit set, I will graft on some male budwood.

[fruitlovers]

Mike, that picture is awesome.  I wonder if at least one of the 4 trees is mostly male.

Two of my trees are flowering heavily. Dozens of honey bees are working the flowers all day long. There are other insects also. If I don't get fruit set, I will graft on some male budwood.

Male is the most common sex. Of 4 trees i got 2 males, 1 female, and 1 I believe is hermaphrodite.

[Mike T]

Fruit comrades, Oscar was correct to point out that my report was surprising. It seems I have inadvertently led you up the garden path. I have made an identification blunder.as revealed by seeing the fruit in the flesh.

I may have been a little hasty in declaring it a Mexican as you can see from the picture. I offloaded a number of different Garcinias to the grower in question at the same time and yes their Mexican is fruiting but the pictures were not of it.
I know what Garcinia enthusiasts are thinking...….. its just a macrophylla.

Well no the ones in the handsome paw were enjoyed a few months ago and are different. They came from Jim West so where does that leave us? Not magnifolia, too small for madrono de monte but what about lindero and Garcinia sp. medrono (not to be confused with G.madruno of course). Well yes maybe as its not a squat or other of Garcinias he has I didn't mention. Stay tuned maybe the source is the place to go.

[Mike T]

Ok Jim West doesn't recognise it so its none of the ones I mentioned as possibilities and I know its isn't San Carlos so what could this species masquerading as the Mexican be? There are only two possibilities and one of these involves getting something right by accident. First option is that it is the rare Atlantic coast bicuda which I received seeds from Brazil on one occasion and saw one fruit picture of and it doesn't seem to match. The other more likely explanation is that mis-identified Brazilian Garcinia seeds received by me were labelled as G.macrophylla afterwards due to the resemblance to seedlings of that Garcinia which is known and loved in Ecuador. The Garcinia known in Brazil is different and likely to a different species as the fruit characteristics don't align. I believe it is likely to be the Brazilian version of G.macrophylla in the pix I posted and the cracks are typical.

[dwfl]

Ok Jim West doesn't recognise it so its none of the ones I mentioned as possibilities and I know its isn't San Carlos so what could this species masquerading as the Mexican be? There are only two possibilities and one of these involves getting something right by accident. First option is that it is the rare Atlantic coast bicuda which I received seeds from Brazil on one occasion and saw one fruit picture of and it doesn't seem to match. The other more likely explanation is that mis-identified Brazilian Garcinia seeds received by me were labelled as G.macrophylla afterwards due to the resemblance to seedlings of that Garcinia which is known and loved in Ecuador. The Garcinia known in Brazil is different and likely to a different species as the fruit characteristics don't align. I believe it is likely to be the Brazilian version of G.macrophylla in the pix I posted and the cracks are typical.

It's garcinia macrophylla. Leaves match too.

[cbss_daviefl]

After hundreds, if not over a thousand flowers, on 3 different seedlings and 1 grafted tree, all flowers have dropped with no fruit set. There are still a few straggler flowers hanging that bloomed later, maybe 10 in total, but they are not getting any bigger and I expect them to drop. The vast majority of flowers presented as female but there were 30 - 40 that presented as male flowers. I hand pollenated and there were plenty of bees working the trees for nearly a month. These trees are 8 years old and have fruited in the past when I hand pollenated using pollen from a male tree grown by a friend.