Stimulation of guava fruiting by branch bending

[pineislander]

I'm not sure how well known this technique is. The branches are tied down for a month until new branching begin. I've heard of bending Carambola branches but didn't hear an explanation for why. It might also be applicable to other fruits with similar bearing habit (bears flowers on current season's growth). It might be useful for out-of-season bearing, or to have a crop bear in a season with less disease or insect pressure.

Video of out of season harvest, guava branches are bearing away from tip growth and along top of arch of branch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNRM_HJMSP8

Guava plant bears flowers on current season’s growth/ new shoots irrespective of time of year. New shoots are produced on mature wood or past season’s growth laterally or terminally. In general flowers are produced in the axils of leaves as solitary or in cymes of two or three flowers. The current season’s flowering shoot continues its growth till fruit setting. After fruit setting the terminal bud ceases its growth until the next growing season. Sometimes, flowers appear at the tip of the current season’s growth. Such shoots do not grow further.

Thus, crop load depends upon the number of new shoots. Emergence of more number of lateral shoots on a branch means more flowering and fruiting. Upright/erect growing branches produce new lateral shoots near to their top end. The lower buds of such branches remain dormant because of apical dominance phenomenon. The tip of the branches produces a plant hormone known as auxin that moves downwards and inhibits the growth and development of lateral buds. This suppressive effect of auxin on lateral buds gets diluted in spreading, droopy or horizontally growing branches and such branches produce enormous number of new lateral shoots.

Therefore, guava branches can be induced to promote more numbers of lateral shoots by adoption of branch bending technique. Bending of branches invigorates or activates the dormant lateral buds by means of suppressing the apical dominance. Besides, this technique induces more flowering by maintaining higher C: N ratio and stimulating proline biosynthesis under an episode of stress.

Link to the method:
http://www.krishisewa.com/articles/production-technology/390-branch-bending-guava.html

Powerpoint presentation:
http://www.share4dev.info/kb/documents/2996.ppt

Scientific paper on the effect:
http://www.banglajol.info/index.php/JESNR/article/download/14808/10548

[Vernmented]

You can also prune them back really hard and keep tipping 3 - 5 leaves out. That is supposed to put them in fruiting mode not dependent on the time of year. Commercial production in the Redlands is heavily pruned.

[Guanabanus]

Arching carambola branches are more fruitful than uprights.  I haven't noticed or heard of any difference in seasonality.

[Vernmented]

The guavas are the ones that are supposed to be pushed into fruiting with heavy pruning.

If you take an upright starfruit branch and gently bend it down you can hear a faint crack like cracking a back. The branch will then keep an arched shape to it. That will make it kick the flowers out when the time comes.

[pineislander]

Besides Star fruit and Guava, which other fruits might react the same?

[fyliu]

Besides Star fruit and Guava, which other fruits might react the same?

white sapote. It bends naturally most of the time though.

[echinopora]

When I was researching espalier and tatura systems there were a few papers that looked to determine what branch angle resulted in the heaviest fruiting. Too vertical and you got excessive of apical dominance, and too far below horizontal you lost vigor. Highest production was on branches allowed to grow as whips and then bent down to 15 degrees below parallel in apples. Similar results in stonefruit where growers had noticed that branches bent down by netting fruited heavier in cherry and peach orchards. There was not too much on tropicals, but what there was had similar types of results.

[Mike T]

Tatura on tropicals depends on species. Doesnt work with all. Once apical dominance is cured it works well,Horizontal or nearly so ensures high production.Abius and guavas are well suited for this method.

[echinopora]

Just need more people to try it out and share thier results. My plantings are all 2.5 years or younger so a few more years before I can contribute much but so far
Guava- year round fruiting if you prune back fruiting laterals to the cordon when you pick fruit.
Mulberry- dwarf black and red shathoot seem to work well,  white shathoot too vigorous
Acerola- filled out the frame quickly, flowers like crazy, not setting yet
Wax jambu- seems overly vigorous,  no fruit yet
Rollinia- vigorous but 2 year old seedling has set fruit this year on its own. (90cm at planting, 2m tall now).
Soursop- grafted, flowering heavily at 2 years, will try to pollenate them next year
Canistel- grafted, flowering heavily at 2 years, easy to train to espalier
Black sapote- seems like it will work, is always flowering but hoping it won't be to vigorous once established.
Low chill stonefruit- multigrafted tree, a little vigorous,  sunraycer and nectarcot need to thin fruit, angel peach (ufo) seems to have poor fruit set, just added florida prince, sunset peach and sunset nectarine for the final cordons.
Carambola- probably the perfect espalier tree. I cut out the top and grafted giant sam, so it will be a sam and kari.

Failures
Jaboticaba- informal palmette would be the go, and I think would allow for easy fruit harvest and protection.  I plan on an informal palmette row for any new jabs since we have a crow problem.  Punch yourself in the crotch if you are considering anything formal with a jaboticaba.
Low chill apple- to hot here, never knows when to leaf out or flower. Underplanted some garcinias.

Time will tell with the rest.

[Guanabanus]

Fertilizing your black-sapote and canistel with Gypsum may get them to set fruit.

[Vernmented]

Just need more people to try it out and share thier results. My plantings are all 2.5 years or younger so a few more years before I can contribute much but so far
Guava- year round fruiting if you prune back fruiting laterals to the cordon when you pick fruit.
Mulberry- dwarf black and red shathoot seem to work well,  white shathoot too vigorous
Acerola- filled out the frame quickly, flowers like crazy, not setting yet
Wax jambu- seems overly vigorous,  no fruit yet
Rollinia- vigorous but 2 year old seedling has set fruit this year on its own. (90cm at planting, 2m tall now).
Soursop- grafted, flowering heavily at 2 years, will try to pollenate them next year
Canistel- grafted, flowering heavily at 2 years, easy to train to espalier
Black sapote- seems like it will work, is always flowering but hoping it won't be to vigorous once established.
Low chill stonefruit- multigrafted tree, a little vigorous,  sunraycer and nectarcot need to thin fruit, angel peach (ufo) seems to have poor fruit set, just added florida prince, sunset peach and sunset nectarine for the final cordons.
Carambola- probably the perfect espalier tree. I cut out the top and grafted giant sam, so it will be a sam and kari.

Failures
Jaboticaba- informal palmette would be the go, and I think would allow for easy fruit harvest and protection.  I plan on an informal palmette row for any new jabs since we have a crow problem.  Punch yourself in the crotch if you are considering anything formal with a jaboticaba.
Low chill apple- to hot here, never knows when to leaf out or flower. Underplanted some garcinias.

Time will tell with the rest.

Tatura on tropicals depends on species. Doesnt work with all. Once apical dominance is cured it works well,Horizontal or nearly so ensures high production.Abius and guavas are well suited for this method.

This is really cool. I am planning out a spot for tatura in my yard right now. I have some espalier stuff like black sapote, sapodilla, and multigrafted annonas right now but nothing has set fruit yet and I am about to rip it out for a redesign. If either one of you can post some pictures of the tropicals that would be great. There is plenty of info on stone fruits but not a whole lot on the rarer tropical crops. I am hoping to put abiu and soursop on mine as well as some other stuff. It will make it easier to protect from cold spells as well. I wrote to the Salleras' from Fruit Forest Farm trying to get a few tips but they never got back to me. They also have a really cool Pachira that I want to hunt down. The picture of the flower they posted was incredible.

I posted a great PDF file a while back that had different growth habits explained.

[Vernmented]

Here it is.

http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=20979.msg257617#msg257617

[echinopora]

Poor light this morning, but here are a few
Carambola






Soursop and rollina








Acerola, jambu behind








Canistel

[Mike T]

Yes the Sallerases who are friends of mine have 100s of trees in production with Tatura style and they are the masters at it.It aso saved trees from 300km/hr cat 5 cyclone Yasi winds.All anonas go well,pouerias and chrysophyllums are ideal, theobromas are great,jackfruit do well and so it goes on.The double 3 or 4 strand method 8 feet high with horizontals and 2 posts leaning outward every say 8m is a good way (a v in cross section except some space at the bottom.Trees are planted in the middle and trained along either side.Maximum sun penetration and air movement helps the tree and maintaince pruning diminished over time once the trees know they will never be big and concede.

[Vernmented]

Very nice! Thanks! I like that you used the chain link fence posts. That is what I am going to do as well.

I posted these before but here are a few I am working on with plain vertical espalier.

Black Sapote






Hasya Sapodilla




Multi graft Annona - 9 varieties
This is a little wild but I am basically just parking budwood until my rootstocks catch up so I have let it grow.

[Mike T]

Oh yeah Gypsum? Nasty stuff really and it causes antagonistic nutrient deficiencies.The secret ingredient for most fruit trees is potash and loads of it. All species have more and better fruit of better taste with additional potash.It is so often overlooked and trees are slugged with micros.N dominated blends and hh Phos recipes.After tailoring a blend to compensate for your soils particular deficiencies and using organic living fertilisers throw potash around.

[Vernmented]

Mike, do you know the spacing they use between trees on each side? 3-4 meters? So trees are planted 1.5 - 3 meters apart and alternated between sides. I have seen pictures of the trees with durian on them. Totally blew my mind. Those must sell for a pretty penny if they ever make it to the market.

[echinopora]

yeah, I inherited about 200 yards of gal steel from a guy, so everything is the yard is made of gal steel. Its a sloped block so thats why the tatura has a  top and bottom bar. Also helps to support netting I guess, but would be way easier on a flat block a a ground anchor.