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Topics - HMHausman

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1
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Lemon Zest Skin Coloration
« on: June 27, 2015, 09:31:05 PM »
Most of the Lemon Zest mangoes I have seen have been uniformly golden yellow in color.  However, one fruit I had on one of my trees had an unusual green coloration which I had never seen on any mango before.  Has anyone seen this?  The eating quality of the fruit seemed unaffected by the unusual skin color.




2
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Kesar Mango
« on: June 22, 2015, 09:34:38 PM »
Had my first home grown Kesar mango.  I have been pleasantly surprised with the growth habit of the tree and its disease resistance in regard to producing a nice crop of very clean looking fruit without any need to spray.  I found the eating quality to be excellent. The flavor profile is definitely classic Indian.  It has a very rich taste with good complexity and is at the same time, very sweet.






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Tropical Fruit Discussion / HMHausman Office Mango Tasting 6/19/15
« on: June 21, 2015, 08:37:42 PM »
I had the pleasure of a visit to one of my office tastings of a forum member and his family. Spaceoak, his wife and two kids stopped by and we chomped a few mangoes that I collected that morning.  The table looked like this:



I have to do some ID as I didn't write the names.  I'll come back shortly to list what we had to try on Friday.

4
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Brewster Lychee 2015.....dissappointing
« on: June 19, 2015, 06:04:02 PM »
Not sure if anyone else has the same issue, but my large Brewster trees have produced a very light crop and the fruit has not sized up properly.  The crop is very disappointing.  I have seen several trees doing the same thing as my tree.  The latest observation of this phenomenon was the Brewster lychee tree on the east side of the Broward County Courthouse. Does anyone have or know of a S. Florida Brewster that has a normal crop on it?

5
Tropical Fruit Discussion / S.T. Maui
« on: June 15, 2015, 06:41:50 PM »
I found this mango under my S.T. Maui tree and I am wondering if it is possibly S.T. Maui or did someone put another mango under the tree.  I only had a couple of fruits set on my S.T. Maui and the other fruits are less than half the size of this one. This fruit is the size of Hatcher or Kensington Pride. Anyone have any ideas?






6
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Clash of Some Titans......Mango Style
« on: June 15, 2015, 03:10:16 PM »
Had a small but interesting tasting over the weekend.  Up for tasting were Cushman, PPK, Fruit Punch, Seacrest, Maha Chanok, and Edward. What was most interesting was this group of mangoes were all at peak ripeness.  Well, due to lack of experience with Fruit Punch and Seacrest, I am only making the assumption that they were at their peak....but all of the others were perfectly ripe. There was widespread disagreement as to which mango took top honors.  There were first place votes for each.  If I did a strict tabulation I think that Fruit Punch would have edged out the others by less than a nose.  With a log jam of all the others tied for second place within fractions of a vote separating one from the other.

7
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Fruit Shape......Lemon Zest
« on: June 12, 2015, 10:12:30 PM »
Lemon Zest mangoes have a very distinctive shape. One of my Lemon Zest trees, however, has an unusually shaped fruit among all the very characteristically shaped ones.  I have seen occasional fruit shape variations but always wonder if the pollinating parent may pass some sort of shaping gene that can affect the appearance of the fruit or is this just an occasional fruit shape variation without relation to the pollinating parent.  Note the very rounded fruit among and to the right of the three fruit cluster at the bottom. Thoughts?


8
Tropical Fruit Discussion / First Lemon Zest and Pina Colada Mangoes
« on: June 12, 2015, 07:57:58 PM »




Found a runt of a Lemon Zest, nice and yellow on the ground.  Its the first home produced Lemon Zest fruit.  The Pina Colada mango was also on the ground and was a tad over ripe.  I ate the Pina Colada first.  I thought it had nice flavor and seemed aptly named based upon its flavor profile.  The tree has been a poor producer thus far but I haven't given up hope yet as the tree has not been in the ground sufficiently long to make any final conclusions.

The Lemon Zest was, in a word, superb.  I have planted out three trees and all are bearing this year despite their relative new planting status.  I don't have a huge number of fruits, but this tree is showing much better production than Pina Colada.


9
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Mango Tasting 6/5/2015
« on: June 05, 2015, 07:06:43 PM »


Very interesting day of mango eating.  Today, there was no clear winner. Surprisingly, Van Dyke held its own among perennial top mangoes, Edward and Dot.  Cushman was off today......a bit overripe. Cushman and Thai Everbearing brought up the rear. There was a split among the first place votes.

10
On today's table was the first of the year Maha Chanok (a drop), PPK, Fairchild, Haden, Sweet Tart,  Florigon, and Cushman.  The winner, for today anyway, was Cushman with Maha Chanok following up a close second.

Please remember that from tasting to tasting, the results can vary with the ripeness of the particular fruits.  The eating quality of all of these mangoes ranged from Haden at Good to the others as all being Excellent.

Sorry.....I was remiss in not taking pics of the platter.  My sincere apologies.

11
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Kensington Pride Mango
« on: June 03, 2015, 07:35:24 PM »




Had some home grown mangoes......one of which was was the famous Australian mango, Kensington Pride. This was the first maturing fruit on my KP tree this year. The KP mango was sliced open first and tasted so that clear palates would be able to best savor its eating qualities.  The consensus among the various tasters was that it was a nicely flavored mango.  The flavor is mostly sweet without any real complexity.  There was no piney resinous taste.  The flesh was smooth and fiber-less. Then the other mangoes were sliced open and compared. The others tried included Edward, Angie, Po Pu Kalay,  Nam Doc Mai, a seedling fruit, that I grew which I suspect may be a cross between Thai Everbearing and Cushman.  The judging group included a Haitian, a Colombian, two native Floridians and a Cuban.  I guess this might be considered skewed because we had no Aussie representation, however, notwithstanding this possibly questionable issue in the judging process, KP brought up the rear in the flavor comparison.  It finished overall ahead of my seedling fruit because my seedling fruit did have some fiber in the flesh. But, there was a split among the judges as to which was better in flavor between the  seedling versus KP.

Now. of course I recognize that a KP grown in Australia may be flavored differently than the one I was able to produce here. But I did want to report my findings from which....you are free to draw what ever conclusion you wish.
 

12
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Manilita Mango
« on: May 27, 2015, 05:17:11 PM »
I bought this mango tree from Fairchild's Mango Festival in 2010, I am embarrassed to say (because my tree is now only about 4 feet tall and is just producing its first fruits as the result of a sub par, shaded planting area, after almost 5 years in the ground).  At that time the write up was as follows:

 It is a selection of 'Manila' from the Pacific Coast of Mexico. The fruit are small and elongated, weighing 250 g (9 oz). The color is an eye-catching pastel red, which covers all but the nose of the fruit. The flesh is light yellow and silky-smooth, with a pleasing sweet and uncomplicated flavor. It is perfect for eating out of hand, for slicing and for dehydrating. The fruit ripen early in the mango season, allowing the grower to have a jump on the season. It is often the earliest red mango to ripen in Florida. The tree is dwarf and disease resistant and is perfectly suited for container or patio production. Tree size can be maintained at 2 m or less in height and 1.5 m in spread. Production is not heavy, but ample harvests can be maintained with proper care.



I just tasted my first home grown fruit and I was pleasantly surprised.  It had a very nice flavor and I was really expecting much less based upon other reviews here on the forum.  Is this a blue ribbon winner, a taste sensation?  No....its not, but is very respectable in overall eating experience, and for those that want an early, smaller, colorful skinned fruit that has a very manageable growth habit, this mango is worth the effort, in my humble opinion.

13
Tropical Fruit Discussion / J-12 mango
« on: May 21, 2015, 07:41:37 PM »
I was fortunate to try the J-12 mango yesterday.  here has been some prior discussion about it here:
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=9058.0





I shared it at the office and everyone was in agreement with it being excellent.  The first picture focuses on the lower part of the mango, which is more yellow than red.  The top is more red than yellow. The flesh seemed more orange in person than the pictures indicate. This mango is very sweet and very juicy. There is no fiber in the flesh.  The taste to me is not Julie like, except maybe in flavor intensity and so I am thinking that Super Julie may be another mango.  Fairchild  Ruby seems a more fitting name.  While this mango does have some complexity in flavor, it seems much less piney twang than a mango you might want to call Super Julie should have.

14
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Guava mango
« on: May 20, 2015, 09:53:24 PM »
I had the pleasure of trying a Guava Mango today.  Sheehan kindly brought it by who got it from Walter Zill via Rob.  Thanks to all in the chain of causation that got the mango on my plate and to my palate.  I don't remember ever trying it before.  The fruit was smallish and golden yellow with a smooth unblemished skin.  The smell of the skin was exactly that of fresh ripe guavas.  It was really quite amazing how closely they mimicked the guava smell.  I am sure there is some deep genetic secret that this mango is keeping that caused it to start mimicking a guava in odor.  I am not a fan of the smell of fresh guavas.  The flavor of the mango, I thought, was quite good.  It was sweet with some complexity. The flesh was fiber-less.  It did not have a guava flavor at all to me. Sheehan felt that it had some washing out of flavor.  For me, for an early mango, I was quite happy with the intensity of flavor of this fruit.  Here's what it looked like:




15
I am not sure if this year is particularly unusual in the mango blooming world, or if I am just more acutely aware of the mango blooming this season, but it seems that we have an unusual blooming cycle this year. I have many trees that are doing a secondary bloom and one, Rosigold that is in a tertiary bloom cycle. It is not uncommon for some trees, especially SE Asian cultivars, to do this.  It is also not unusual for Indian cultivars, like Carrie, to do this when the first blooming sets little or no fruit.  This year, there seems to be many fruits set and still there is a re-bloom.  There are also a few cultivars that haven't begun to bloom until this week.  Ivory at my house is blooming for the first time in March when it has always been a February bloomer.

This is a very good thing for a nice, long mango season.  I am wondering what others are experiencing.

16
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Maprang Fruit Set
« on: February 17, 2015, 09:57:24 PM »
So my little tree that some of you may remember, got almost mowed down by a golf cart, threw a bunch bloom pannicles off in its last growth flush.  The tree is still barely a meter tall.  I was disappointed to see no fruit set....... or, so I thought.  I noticed a few days ago that some of the pannicles were still green and lo and behold, upon further, closer, examination, there are little red fruits that have set.  Not sure of the exact count but looks like at least 5 fruits....maybe more and the tree has a section going into bloom again.

This tree has previously set two small fruits but they dropped when still rather small.  I am anxious to see what happens this year.  I'll try to post a picture tomorrow.

17
Tropical Fruit Discussion / My 2015 Lychee Bloom Report
« on: January 22, 2015, 08:34:53 AM »
Did a quick survey and wanted to report the status of lychee bloom in my yard.

Mauritius.......2 trees, both blooming.

Brewster.......2 tree, both blooming

Bengal..........1 tree, no bloom as of yet

Emperor........2 trees, no bloom yet

Garnet...........1 tree, no bloom yet

Bosworth3/Kwai Mai Pink........3 trees, no bloom yet

Early Large Red......1 tree, blooming

Seymour.........1 tree.....blooming for the first time since planting, maybe 15-17 years ago

Peerless.......1 large in ground tree, no bloom, but an air layer of the same tree from a couple of months ago, still in a pot, blooming

Poamoho.......1 small tree, still in a pot, blooming.

Ohia.............2 trees, not blooming

Ohia Red......1 in grround tree, not blooming, neither is one I still have in a pot

Kaimana.......3 trees, looks like only largest, originally planted tree is blooming

Sweetheart (or whatever it is that I have that is allegedly Sweetheart).....2 trees, both blooming

Hak Ip.....3 trees, all blooming but very sparsely

Farwell Farms.......1 tree, blooming

Groff......in pot but grown into ground through pot, not blooming

In general, bloom is lighter, more sparse, on the trees that are in bloom than in previous good lychee production years.  I also find that many of the bloom spikes are partially and in some cases substantially producing leaves.  So far, no fruit set, its too early.

18
Tropical Fruit Discussion / 2014 Mango Musings
« on: August 09, 2014, 01:45:13 PM »
We're into August, well into the mango late season here in Florida. I thought I would note some of my mango experiences from this year so far. First let me say that the trees still holding fruit are mostly your standard later varieties........Keitt, Beverly, Golden Nugget, Neelam, Valencia Pride, Palmer, Golden Lippens, Mallika, my seedling of Mallika, and Maha Chanok.  Maha Chanok is noteworthy because one of my four trees has been maturing fruit for a couple of months already. I also still have Ivory on the tree and a few Julie and Carrie that were later blooms on isolated branches. 

Maha, one of my all time favorite mangoes has been quite good this year.  It continues to be a very sweet, complex flavored fruit with great growing qualities.  However, some of the new mangoes produced by Zills have a more "in your face" strong flavor that has taken up lead honors at various tastings that I have conducted this year. Lemon Zest is a definite perennial front runner for lead honors.  I have been very impressed with Sweet Tart both on the flavor profile and the production/disease resistance.  Lemon Zest, although I have planted three trees, has not yet bloomed at my house and seems very susceptible to foliar fungus, especially black sooty mold. Lady's choice, an improved East Indian type, was fruitful, but highly susceptible to fruit fungus such that the entire crop was lost.  There was no spraying done. Pina Colada flowered profusely but set no fruit.  Emerald, a perennial disappointment on the fruit set front, set more fruits than ever, none of which was I ever able to enjoy thanks to poor observation on my part of the onset of maturity. Alphonso also set more fruits this year than in all previous fruiting seasons combined.  The fruit eating quality continues to be very disappointing…..mediocre at best……not a superlative mango in my yard.  Kensington Pride, the Australian wonder, set more fruits than in any previous year.  These were Ok…..nothing to write home about and certainly, at least as grown in my yard, have no business being the rage of a continent.

I was impressed with fruits brought to my various tastings.  High on the list and candidates for tree procurement and planting are Dupuis Saigon, Taralay and Kun See. I better post this before I go further and lose the whole thing by accident.  To be continued…..

19
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Costa Rica.........visit to Finca La Isla
« on: June 23, 2014, 08:06:59 AM »
Got back this week from a family trip to Costa Rica. On the Caribbean side, south of Limon in the area of the town of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca is a lovely farm/botanical garden owned by one of our forum members.  We had the pleasure to tour the farm and Peter was very generous with his time to show us around.  What a beautiful property he has.  Many gigantic specimen trees, fruit trees, ornamentals and herbs are everywhere. Peter has his own little gourmet chocolate production going on. We got to see his little chocolate laboratory with his three concher machines making some of the most delicious chocolates we encountered in Costa Rica. Peter is experimenting with various herbal infusions for his organically grown and produced chocolates and that makes them all the more interesting, unique and delicious.

June is not the best month to visit if you are seeking peak fruit production, but I am happy to say that I have finally had a salak fruit that I could actually enjoy and didn't cause me extreme astringency puckering.  The fruits Peter shared with us were not absolutely dead ripe, but they were close enough to allow me to taste the true potential of the fruit.  I take back everything bad I have ever said about the salak palm....well except that I still hate the thorns.

Tasted a number of fruits I have never tried.  Most of these were sour fruits with excellent juice/jam making potential.  We were able to buy some really excellent organically grown vanilla seed pods, great black peppercorns, coffee, nutmeg and of course, a good sampling of fantastic chocolate. If you find yourself on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, a visit to Finca La Isla is a must. Thanks so much again, Peter.  It was a pleasure to meet you.

mod edit: paragraphs

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I have a few of my Black Gold x Tabouey seedling jakfruit (fruits, not trees). The producing tree is from the Fairchild breeding program. Fruit available now for $2/pound.....local pick up only.  Send me a PM of interested. 

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / First Cacao pod harvested
« on: March 02, 2014, 01:10:00 PM »
I picked this fruit about a week ago, but am just getting around to opening it. 




What the heck......Post Image took it without any problem and from the same cell phone and upload process.  I am so confused.

Anyway, the very scant white flesh was quite tasty around the seeds of the cacao.  It had sort of a sweet tart vibe too it.  Everyone that tasted it wished there was more flesh to enjoy.  Now begins the drying and fermentation process on the seeds.  Watch out Godiva!

22
This time of year makes walking in the yard a very promising experience.  The air is filled with the smell of mango bloom.  Some don't care for the fragrance.  It is strong and hits your nose pretty hard, but i like the smell. Here is some of what is going on out my way today.







Having some trouble again posting.  Post Image won't allow me to post as the files are too large.  I'm on to Picasa Web, now Google Plus and the images are too small to see what is going on. I'll post these to see if they allow you to click and make them larger once posted.  But they don't in the preview so I am assuming they won't when posted.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Mango grafting success
« on: February 17, 2014, 10:30:01 PM »
I was fortunate to receive (through our Secret Santa program) some bud wood for a cherished mango cultivar called "Cajeta."  The scions were in transit for more than a week.  I received them and grafted them the day after Christmas.  There were four scions.  I did three side veneer grafts and one cleft. Amazingly, they are all still green and one is pushing out on two sides:




Considering that my usual grafting prowess nets about a 10-20% success rate and that's generally during the warmer months.  This was my all time most productive graft results.  What did I do differently?  Well, not sure why I did it, but I soaked the scions in a weak bleach solution first.  I did my grafting in the usual clumsy manner.  I was really happy with one of the grafts as far as fit of scion to root stock.  Two were of mediocre quality and one was down right crappy.  I used buddy tape exclusively and made sure to completely wrap the scion so nothing was exposed.  The scions had no leaves attached to them when they arrived. I'm still amazed. or should I say shocked.
 

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Cacao.....when to harvest
« on: February 17, 2014, 10:21:03 PM »
So I have two trees with pods sizing up.  One was purchased as a yellow fruited variety and it now looks like this after being green up to now.




The other was purchased without any color description.  It is an older tree, but due to freezes in past years, I have never gotten fruit this large yet.  It looks like this:





I found through googling:

The color of the cocoa pods may only be used as a general guide to the ripeness of the cocoa. A much better guide is to tap the cocoa pod. When the pod is still in its unripened state, the beans are packed tightly within the pod. When stuck, if the cocoa pod gives off a deep, hollow sound, the cocoa beans are no longer packed within the pod but are loose, a sure indication that the pod is ripe.

Anyone have any additional suggestions or hints?

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / First Lychee Blooms of 2014 Season
« on: January 29, 2014, 12:11:21 PM »
This morning I noticed the first confirmed lychee blooms. Oddly enough, I do not see blooms on Hak Ip nor Mauritius....which are usually the first two I see bloom on.  The most developed blooms are on a tree that is called Farwell Farm or also referred to as Farwell Ranch. This was a seedling selection from an old nursery in California called Tree Farm Nursery.  I do not believe they exist anymore. I received an air-layer from them in the mid 1990's.  I believe this selection to be a seedling of Mauritius, but have no proof of same.  Also starting to show bloom development is one of my two Sweetheart trees. Many trees have already pushed new foliage and are not expected to put on a crop this year, I am disappointed to say. It was raining this morning, so I couldn't get any pictures.  I'll further document soon.

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