jaboticaba: how to accelerate the first fruit production with a strange method.

[huertasurbanas]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAukDe9Ez7M


In the video, the brasilian man explains how his Jaboticaba produced fruits for the first time on a trunk that was tied with a metal wire. This is a method for floral induction.

The trunks which had not attached any wire, had not borne fruit.

It is a discovery happened by chance and error.

Has anyone tried this or will try?

[pineislander]

lots of plants respond to stress by flowering. I've heard of (anecdotally) people driving nails into coconut to induce flowering before. What may be happening is the wire is girdling the branch.
There is some basis for this:
https://www.researchgate.net/file.PostFileLoader.html?id=55d96f0d5f7f71eb398b4596&assetKey=AS%3A273837277548547%401442299302550

http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/07/04/jxb.erw272.abstract

[Bush2Beach]

Yes, like whomping your Avocado tree trunk with a metal chain for better fruit production.

[achetadomestica]

DEATHBLOOM!

[Don]

I have cinctured the trunk with good success and one of the old mans mates reckons using the chain to give the jabo a hiding.

[huertasurbanas]

lots of plants respond to stress by flowering. I've heard of (anecdotally) people driving nails into coconut to induce flowering before. What may be happening is the wire is girdling the branch.
There is some basis for this:
https://www.researchgate.net/file.PostFileLoader.html?id=55d96f0d5f7f71eb398b4596&assetKey=AS%3A273837277548547%401442299302550

http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/07/04/jxb.erw272.abstract

"Thus, stress-induced fl owering might have a
biological benefi t and should be considered as important as photoperiodic
fl owering and vernalization"

Interesting.

The thing is: would this jaboticaba flower again the next season, or would be just a thing of one time?

[fruitlovers]

lots of plants respond to stress by flowering. I've heard of (anecdotally) people driving nails into coconut to induce flowering before. What may be happening is the wire is girdling the branch.
There is some basis for this:
https://www.researchgate.net/file.PostFileLoader.html?id=55d96f0d5f7f71eb398b4596&assetKey=AS%3A273837277548547%401442299302550

http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/07/04/jxb.erw272.abstract

"Thus, stress-induced fl owering might have a
biological benefi t and should be considered as important as photoperiodic
fl owering and vernalization"

Interesting.

The thing is: would this jaboticaba flower again the next season, or would be just a thing of one time?

This is called girdling or cincturing. It is a method very commonly and effectively used on lychees to force them to fruit. It must be done at right time of year and only to a few branches so as to not damage the tree. If you research girdling lychee (litchi) you can find lots of information.

[huertasurbanas]

Oh, so this strange method it was called girdling, this brasilian man didnt discovered the moon...

Do u use it Oscar? I dont think if it would be good to use it: it seems to be a torture method...

[luak]

I believe that extra iron from steelwire embedded causes this. i did this with a pear tree where i ran a few nails around the trunk. This tree had never produce anything till the following year.

[fruitlovers]

Oh, so this strange method it was called girdling, this brasilian man didnt discovered the moon...

Do u use it Oscar? I dont think if it would be good to use it: it seems to be a torture method...

Yes have girdled lychee branches, but have not tried it on jaboticaba. Two ways to do girdling, one is to make shallow cut all the way around the branch with hand saw, the second is to use wire as a sort of tourniquet. You want to restrict flow of carbohydrates to stress the limb into flowering. You have to know when to remove wire or you can kill the branch if you leave wire for too long. When you do an air layer technique is similar: you are notching branch to get it to form roots. Air layered branches will often form fruis for this reason that they are also stressed.
BTW the reason a girdled branch fruits has nothing to do with iron in the wire. You can achieve same results without using any metals by just making a surface cut with a hand saw.
These methods work on all fruit trees that are signaled to fruit either by cold stress or drought stress. The physical girdling is an attempt to imitate these kinds of stresses on the trees in years when there is not sufficient cool temperatures or dry spells.

[Mike T]

Girdling with wire is a pretty old method. Taking to recalcitrant trees with a cricket or baseball ball, tyre iron or pipe is also old and popular. Withholding water until a specific level of stress is experienced is also widely practiced. If a tree or branch 'thinks' it will or is dying it has only one shot at immortality.

[fruitlovers]

Girdling with wire is a pretty old method. Taking to recalcitrant trees with a cricket or baseball ball, tyre iron or pipe is also old and popular. Withholding water until a specific level of stress is experienced is also widely practiced. If a tree or branch 'thinks' it will or is dying it has only one shot at immortality.

I don't recommend anyone hitting their trees, driving nails, or running over their tree with their tractor. Girdling with a wire, making a cut, or witholding water can be very precisely controlled methods. These other brute methods cannot be precisely controlled and are very likely to cause permanent damage or even kill the tree. Ihe idea is to stress the tree just the right amount, not to torture or mame the tree.

[Cookie Monster]

I've read that Al Will recommended using triple superphosphate to induce early blooming in jabo.

[LivingParadise]

Apparently common method for inducing otherwise happy figs to fruit is to beat them with a stick... If they get too much water and too many nutrients, they often won't flower. I don't like to beat anything I love to keep it in line. Everything in its right season and its right time. Not fruiting because they're unhappy is a different matter, but forcing it to think it's dying does seem like it might be faulty logic in terms of the long-term health of the tree (not to mention your relationship with it   ). There are also other ways to give a plant iron or other nutrients if it needs it. Some people just like taking their frustrations out on those closest to them and most helpless, though... Poor trees! If only they could pick themselves up and run when Farmer Brown comes out back with the switch... but alas, they're stuck where they grow.

[pineislander]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_barren_fig_tree

[gnappi]

My beautiful Sabara has stopped fruiting, and my second one which has grown like a weed has not fruited yet.

[simon_grow]

This topic was very interesting to me because Jaboticabas are delicious but can take a long time to fruit. Many people also want to keep our trees small so early fruiting in Jaboticaba can have multiple benefits. By focusing energy on fruit production, resources will be pulled away from vegetative growth.

The use of girdling or cincturing is well documented and the mechanism is pretty well understood. By blocking the energy produced in the leaves, hormonal signals favor flowering over vegetative growth but one needs to time this girdling in order to maximize its potential to induce flowering and increase retention of fruit.

I have first hand experience with early flowering caused by a girdled branch when I put on an air layer on my Kohala Longan tree. The branch that was air layered flowered when nearby branches grew vegetatively.

In order to test out this technique, I used a paperclip to girdle my in ground Sabara Jaboticaba which is flowering for the first time. The flowers buds are just starting to pop out on the thickest part of the trunk which is about 1.75-2 inches in diameter. I decided to girdle branches that are higher up and much thinner because I feel these thinner branches have very little chance of flowering this year or even the next couple of years.
My Sabara trunk with its first flowers

Small girdled branch about pencil to sharpie thick

Same tree but a little higher up, this branch is slightly thicker than the first


This is a different tree. This is a double rootstock Sabara that is growing about twice as fast as one on single rootstock but it has never flowered. This tree has not even peeled yet, or not that I recall. I believe this tree will likely not flower until it is around 2 inches in diameter like my first tree. I girdled this one branch about sharpie thickness.

Here is the scar where I innarched the two trees together

Here is the portion of the trunk directly above the healed union of my approach graft

I purposefully chose smaller branches that are less likely to succeed because this is likely more beneficial if the technique works.

Has anyone had success with this technique yet? I'll keep everyone updated.

Simon

[boxturtle]

threatening a tree that you will cut it down if it doesn't fruit this year seems to work too

[palologrower]

crying and yelling hasn't worked for me yet, so girdling it is. 

[simon_grow]

I harvested my first home grown Grimal Jaboticaba from a Tree grafted onto Sabara seedling. I left the fruit on the tree until the fruit was a little squishy and the fruit tasted excellent with a hint of blueberry flavor. I was amazed by the high Brix reading of 25%! This fruit had three seeds inside it. If I get enough fruit, I would love to make some jelly. I'm glad this grafted tree fruited so early for me, only about 1-2 years from grafting.

Simon

[Mike T]

If you withhold N and give extra P and K and make sure zinc and boron are present in sufficient amounts you can increase the chance of flowering and fruiting.

[simon_grow]

Thanks for the tip Mike, I also have a couple tests where I girdled a couple branches to see if that might increase fruiting.

Simon

[luc]

Girdling with wire is a pretty old method. Taking to recalcitrant trees with a cricket or baseball ball, tyre iron or pipe is also old and popular. Withholding water until a specific level of stress is experienced is also widely practiced. If a tree or branch 'thinks' it will or is dying it has only one shot at immortality.

I don't recommend anyone hitting their trees, driving nails, or running over their tree with their tractor. Girdling with a wire, making a cut, or witholding water can be very precisely controlled methods. These other brute methods cannot be precisely controlled and are very likely to cause permanent damage or even kill the tree. Ihe idea is to stress the tree just the right amount, not to torture or mame the tree.

Hahaha , Oscar , remember running over his longan trees with his tractor wasn't that what an Israeli guy ( yahoo rarefruit group ) did , forgot his name , but it worked ....

[gnappi]

I've read that Al Will recommended using triple superphosphate to induce early blooming in jabo.

Interesting, I also read the same about sulphur. When to apply and how much?

[fruitlovers]

Girdling with wire is a pretty old method. Taking to recalcitrant trees with a cricket or baseball ball, tyre iron or pipe is also old and popular. Withholding water until a specific level of stress is experienced is also widely practiced. If a tree or branch 'thinks' it will or is dying it has only one shot at immortality.

I don't recommend anyone hitting their trees, driving nails, or running over their tree with their tractor. Girdling with a wire, making a cut, or witholding water can be very precisely controlled methods. These other brute methods cannot be precisely controlled and are very likely to cause permanent damage or even kill the tree. Ihe idea is to stress the tree just the right amount, not to torture or mame the tree.

Hahaha , Oscar , remember running over his longan trees with his tractor wasn't that what an Israeli guy ( yahoo rarefruit group ) did , forgot his name , but it worked ....

You talking about Ariel? Ye his techniques were so "genius" that, maybe he should run for president of the USA? 

[simon_grow]

Here is a picture of my Sabara with double rootstocks. One of the rootstocks are about as thick as my pinky finger and the other rootstock is about as thick as my middle finger. The trunk above the graft union is just slightly thicker than my middle finger. This is quite a thin diameter trunk for a Sabara to be fruiting on. It fruited last year and this year, there is more flowers. This tree is in a small pot and I’m sure it will flower and fruit more profusely if I up potted it and gave it some fertilizer.





Simon

[simon_grow]

Here is a Grimal grafted on Sabara rootstock. The trunk is about as thick as my middle finger. It has fruited for the past three years. Grafting sure seems to increase the precocity of Jaboticabas.



Simon

[hellosf]

Simon - Where did you order the rootstock and can post a pulled back shot of the size of your tree? How many years old?

Thanks!

[WGphil]

My twenty year old jabo

[TnTrobbie]

Damn. Can i get those fruit that's on the floor . Whats a "good" spacing for Sabara trees?

[simon_grow]

Here’s a pulled back shot of the Grimal grafted onto Sabara rootstock, it is 32 inches tall, not including the pot.


Here’s a pic of the double rootstock Sabara, it is about 36 inches tall excluding the pot. The rootstocks came from Adam of Flying Fox Fruits Nursery.




Simon

[simon_grow]

My Double rootstock Sabara is flowering all over now. Oddly, it’s not flowering on the trunk but around the tips of the branches. The diameter of the trunk is still really small for a fruiting Sabara. I believe the double rootstocks really increases precocity.







Simon

[SeaWalnut]

I would use gibberellic acid solution to try make the trees flower faster instead of harming the tree with nails, metal wires and otther such crazy techniques.

[simon_grow]

I have GA and have used it in the past but the innarching/ double rootstock technique seems promising. I have used the paper clip technique and it seems to work and even if you leave the clip on it too long, the cambium will just grow around it.

GA is a naturally occurring in plants but I still wouldn’t haphazardly use it without knowing the exact concentrations to stimulate flowering. If the concentration is known, we can try it on varieties that are not precocious.

Simon

[K-Rimes]

I have GA and have used it in the past but the innarching/ double rootstock technique seems promising. I have used the paper clip technique and it seems to work and even if you leave the clip on it too long, the cambium will just grow around it.

GA is a naturally occurring in plants but I still wouldn’t haphazardly use it without knowing the exact concentrations to stimulate flowering. If the concentration is known, we can try it on varieties that are not precocious.

Simon

What concentration have you seen success at? How often did you use it?

[simon_grow]

I used it to germinate seeds. I would like to know myself what concentration should be used for induction of blooms in Jaboticaba.

Simon

[SeaWalnut]

I used it to germinate seeds. I would like to know myself what concentration should be used for induction of blooms in Jaboticaba.

Simon

Ive searched and it seems nobody did at least a study on GA inducing flowering on jaboticaba.
To induce flowering you have to use a lot less concentration than for germinating seeds.
It works for sure but there could be side effects also .
When il buy somme jaboticabas il try this for sure and post the results .

[Dirt Diva]

If you withhold N and give extra P and K and make sure zinc and boron are present in sufficient amounts you can increase the chance of flowering and fruiting.

Hi Mike,
I just got  the super triple phosphate from kelp4less is this food sufficient in your opinion, not sure about zinc and boron ?? I would love to entice a couple of red jabos 2 years old and a sabara that has been peeling for 4 1/2 years no flowers yet and unpruned. Is this beneficial, possibly risky to the overall tree health ? I am not exhibiting patience and want some fruit LOL
Of course I want to wait until winter's end and get pushy in the spring.

Happy Gardening,
P J, the Dirt Diva

[Mike T]

Sabara is a serial ass and might take 12 or so years in your climate. If your red is a red hybrid or a scarlet then we have a shot at faster action. 3 years in good conditions is possible but with cool winters a bit longer. The main thing you need besides good sunlight, watering as required and fertilizer is patience and there is no real magic bullet otherwise.Trimming can slow then down but light pruning of crossed, under-developed and low branches shouldn't delay things. BTW don't go crazy with boron or buy borax for ants and upend it over pot plants as there could be casualties.

[Bush2Beach]

Spritzing g3 brought 15 + year old sabaras into fruition for the first time!

[Dirt Diva]

Thanks for the tips Mike and Bush2beach ...

I have several smaller seedlings ...
2 - 2 yr. old reds and yes they are hybrids I am told
2 Coronata R. about 10 mo. old
1 white
1 pithrantha ESALQ
the sabara is at least 9 yrs old now I give her lots of water and lives in dappled light in a very big pot.

Mike you mentioned sunlight ... I have kept the seedlings in mostly shade  ... at this tender age, should they be getting more sunlight thru the fall ?

I also saw Adam's post about TurfPro and am thinking it helped him double the size of his reds in a single year so it would be good to use also and I think it would be good for my others like Eugenias, Java Plum, Guavas etc. What do y'all think ?

I sure appreciate all y'all helping a Diva out   

P J

[Mike T]

As much sun as possible without roasting them.