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Everything looks really weird to me. Not how I used to see other tropical places. Totally different weeds.
What is your elevation? Do cherimoyas fruit for other people around you? I wonder if you are high enough? Coconut and cherimoya are generally not the same climate fruit, with few rare overlapping exceptions. You have them both.
I think there is little commercial potential with your planting selection. Mangoes unlikely to fruit well judging by climate alone and your soil description. Amazon tree grape is very low commercial value. No idea of Inga bean value, never seen them in Peru. . Avocados are probably only exception given right varieties. Assuming ideal scenario, and everything grows to a size they are suppose to, I think just about everything is planted too close. It's likely to become problematic in 5 years. Just my 2 cents observation.
I'm big proponent of marang. I think should be planted everywhere in tropics. One of the best fruits in the world, will always have good commercial value once people get to know it in a new place. Big, very beautiful low spreading tree (with proper pruning ). Easy to collect large fruits. 3-4 years from seed. Falling leaves automatically create mulch and prevent weeds. No need to cut grass around the tree once it's big enough. You should definitely introduce some and see how they do in your place. Despite thriving in lowland tropics, I have seen them growing well as high as 1300 meters elevation.
I would try to introduce sheep instead of cows. Cows eat mango leaves and other fruit tree leaves. Sheep unlikely to do so and reach high enough. Also they are lighter animals, hooves will not make such impact in the soil as cows. Thus preventing erosion.
There's been some debate whether or not those are actually "cherimoyas." I'm no expert. Others on here could analyze better.
We're at about 950m elevation. Yes, everything is "too close" from a traditional farming perspective. Half of what we planted is support species, so double the distance. Most of what we planted is seed-grown. Subtract what succumbs to disease, predation, etc. and the specimens that don't produce quality fruit, then you'll end up with a lot more distance. Also, for the overall health of the systsem, in general it's better to overplant. This ecosytem wants to be a forest, so it needs woody material to feed the fungal soils. Our original soil tests showed this place to be pretty low in SOM.
Let's see what else? Mangoes. There are a lot of mango trees nearby that fruit well. Inga fruit is very commercial here, but also not really worth the effort in our situation.
If my original goal was to turn a quick profit from this place, I would've alleycropped the entire property with proven timber species and grafted fruit trees intercropped with coffee and left ten meter wide alleys in between the rows of trees to raise beef cattle to slaughter. Although I'm not convinced grafted is the way to go. There really aren't many successful examples locally. Most successful fruit trees people have are seedlings like Avocados and Caimito. The vast majority of everyone grows coffee for money. It's an endeavor that is lucrative to most because they go up in the national forest, clearcut tracts of land, and burn everything off. They get the nice virgin soil, exploit it for a few years and then move on.
The original goal of our place was more a dream-land place for personal use. Highly experimental, since we didn't know what would be successful. Turns out it's a lot of the stuff I had never heard of before. We planted about 40 species of tree, what makes you so confident to paint with a broad brush and say that none other than avocados will have much commercial potential? Lots of the specimens out here would beg to differ.
I'm not motivated to sell fresh fruit given our location and access. The only sensical thing is to produce value-added products like dried fruits, fermented products, medicinal plant-based supplements, and animals. We plan to start guinea pigs soon, because there is already a lot of Elephant grass and other fodder trees growing on site that could provide 90+ percent of their diet. Sounds very low-overhead to me.
Originally I wanted to raise sheep out here, but that's not practical. Tropical sheep breeds do tend to stand on their hind legs to eat trees, which can rival the 2m browse line of cattle, and I've also been told they are more likely to de-bark trees than cows. Brachiaria spp. are toxic to sheep and will kill them, if they are the majority of their diet. That is the vast majority of grass that we have out on pasture. Also, there is no local market for sheep meat. I'm curious why you and Finca are not fans of the idea of raising cows in this situation. Do you have experience raising cattle? It's not something I plan to do right away. Need to keep an eye on the trees to see if they would be big enough to handle the impact. We've got a ways to go still.
Do you have a scientific name for Marang? I appreciate the suggestion. Any idea if it's available in Peru?
Here's a farming approach that might seem crazy to you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RePJ3rJa1Wg
Everything looks really weird to me. Not how I used to see other tropical places. Totally different weeds.
What is your elevation? Do cherimoyas fruit for other people around you? I wonder if you are high enough? Coconut and cherimoya are generally not the same climate fruit, with few rare overlapping exceptions. You have them both.
I think there is little commercial potential with your planting selection. Mangoes unlikely to fruit well judging by climate alone and your soil description. Amazon tree grape is very low commercial value. No idea of Inga bean value, never seen them in Peru. . Avocados are probably only exception given right varieties. Assuming ideal scenario, and everything grows to a size they are suppose to, I think just about everything is planted too close. It's likely to become problematic in 5 years. Just my 2 cents observation.
I'm big proponent of marang. I think should be planted everywhere in tropics. One of the best fruits in the world, will always have good commercial value once people get to know it in a new place. Big, very beautiful low spreading tree (with proper pruning ). Easy to collect large fruits. 3-4 years from seed. Falling leaves automatically create mulch and prevent weeds. No need to cut grass around the tree once it's big enough. You should definitely introduce some and see how they do in your place. Despite thriving in lowland tropics, I have seen them growing well as high as 1300 meters elevation.
I would try to introduce sheep instead of cows. Cows eat mango leaves and other fruit tree leaves. Sheep unlikely to do so and reach high enough. Also they are lighter animals, hooves will not make such impact in the soil as cows. Thus preventing erosion.
This is why travelling to or at least visiting some other tropical fruit farms is so important to do before attempting something like this because it’s simply a matter of him not knowing what he’s missing out on if he’s never eaten fruits like durian, marang, cempedak, mangosteen, salak etc etc. imo he would have been far better off planting 1,000 marang or mangosteen than mangoes, which as you mentioned likely won’t produce well in that climate.
I’ve created great demand for salak which was introduced to CR by us.
Peter
. 21 euros a kilo. Mangosteen was 17 euros a kilo. Whole cacao pods 16 euros each.
Hi Rytis,
Just wait for few more years, fruit size will increase. Fruits in the mother tree weigh around 3/4kg. Thickness of flesh in arils vary from tree to tree. Taste is also not predictable in seedlings. My seedling have lots of fruit in the lower branches that I can pluck by hand from ground. Fruit size is just ok with very few arils inside! I hope fruits will be better this year.
One more thing I want to point out is that the fruit shown the picture is not fully formed. This usually happens in younger plants and in the absence of adequate pollination.
So, my point is that don't rule out your Wild jackfruit plant, if the taste is good. Taste is not going to change that much in years; but rain during fruiting season can definitely ruin the party.
That’s a nice looking tree you have there. Did you get to try the fruit yet? Thoughts?
How is the quality of fruit vipin? This wild jack was planted around 5 year ago on a friends land in HI, still no fruit
Mine fruits on a very tip of outside thin branches. You cannot climb the tree to pick up fruits. 
How are your other trees doing? Any marang fruit yet ? I did not get to try kesusu when I went to Tenom.
Missing in action
DurianLover
Glad to see you back!
Is that Prainea Limpato close to fruiting?More pics from the garden please,you have a great collection.
The red prawn seeds from your trip for durian last time are alive and growing,showing good cold tolerance just have to keep the watered through the dry season.
What sort of soil do you think it prefers? I have one in the nursery that has had a rough start. It seems to be doing better now that I’ve added some iron and sulfur. What’s your take on how to get the best result?
Peter
Never measured soil ph or done mineral analysis. Just giving wheelbarrow of chicken manure once a year and that's it. This was most vigorous seedling out of the batch. Another slower growing kesusu seedling not far from this one isn't nearly as big. Yet another kesusu I got from Maryoto couple years later ( allegedly different strain, red color ) is significantly slower. I think for certain species, it simply comes down to individual vigour. if seedling is struggling mightily despite all efforts, it even makes sense to a get new batch of seeds, and select few individuals from a new batch will catch up and outgrow original one using the same soil and care techniques. Seen it couple times.
My phone tells me 21,780 sqft in 0.5 acres.
8 ft spacing would work
So my question, for those in the true tropics;
how long does it take for your mangoes to flower once seasonal dry period begins?
What has been your experience with multiple crops?
