The Tropical Fruit Forum

I've been told that the Nam Doc Mai produces polyembryonic seeds.  My neighbor has a NDM that I thought was #4, just planted a few years ago...but I cracked open a seed and it only had one seed embryo in there.  Based on this, can I assume that it's a mono and any fruit that may grow from a seedling will be a mystery fruit?

Is there such a thing?  Like many naive homeowners when I first moved to SW FL in 2015 I planted a Myers lemon tree.  Sure enough, within a year or so (maybe less) it got greening.  At this point I'm not sure what to do besides rip it out and plant something else.  It looks OK but the fruit are terrible.  But here's my question...  I have a friend here in Cape Coral who cut his tree down 15 whatever years ago when the county required all homeowners to do so for canker control.  From the stump a small shoot grew, which developed into a nice tree that produces vast amounts of nice fruit ever year.  This tree doesn't seem to be affected by any diseases as far as I can tell.  Is it possible that whatever the rootstock of this tree was is more resistant to disease and that's why it's thriving?  I took some cuttings today to see if I could get them to root.

...and to a lesser extent squirrels?  I have 2 small mango trees and 2 small avocado trees and unless I pick the fruit green they tend to get most of my crop.  Short of trapping them, are there any effective deterrents?  I was looking at nylon fruit bags but I suspect they can chew right threw them.  I've tried solar powered ultrasonic repellers but those didn't seem to work. 

I'm wondering why my leaves are going brown like this.  The new growth looks fine for a while then they get chewed by bugs and eventually start turning brown from the tips on up.  I did have problems with anthracnose last year and I've been spraying with copper fungicide about once a week.  This seems to be a year-round problem and it happens to my Sweet Tart as well but not as bad.  This tree is small and has been in the ground for about 3 years now.

These bananas started busting out of the flower stalk on May 12 so it has been well over 4 months.  As you can see they have plumped out nicely but are only about 3" -3 1/2" long.  Is the stalk ready to be cut or should I give them some more time?

Planted two 15gal mango trees about a year and a half ago...Pickering and a Sweet Tart.   Both of them started with lots of fruit but most of it fell in the winds we had this spring in SW Florida.  What remained were a handful of mangos on both trees that look terrible.  The leaves don't look good either.  I suspect they both have anthracnose.  Does that appear to be a correct diagnosis?  Once the last fruits are off I was planning on pruning off the non-healthy looking branches and spraying with a fungicide.  Or, do I not need to worry about spraying the trees until they're flowering again?

Bought a papaya last spring from a local reputable grower (no idea what kind).  I live in Ft Myers FL.  I see them growing all around here like weeds so I didn't think they were a high maintenance plant.  The plant was about 5ft tall and had lots of healthy green leaves when I planted it.  I planted it in an area that gets irrigation twice a week.  Full sun.  As the spring and then the summer went on it started to lose leaves from the bottom, then through the summer it lost more and more leaves until just a few remained at the very top.  Eventually this fall those dropped as well and then the plant died.  Any thoughts on what might have happened?

We planted a 7 gal Florida Hass last February along with a number of other fruit trees.  Unfortunately the avocado didn't fare well in Hurricane Irma and snapped in half, literally.  I noticed that just below the break it's starting to push up new growth.  Is it even worth it to let it try to re-grow?  Am I just going to get root stock, whatever that was?

On Feb 1 of this year we planted 2 new 15 gallon trees that we acquired from Fruitscapes in Pine Island FL.  The trees were very healthy looking.  1 Persian lime and 1 Meyers lemon.  Applied a root drench containing immidicloprid  about a month and a half after planting (the grower said do this once every 3 months).  I while ago now I started to notice the lime trees leaves were turning yellow and dropping.  It has now lost most of its leaves.  The lemon looks much better but we're also seeing some yellowing there as well as leaf curling and spots.  Upon closer examination I noticed a strange looking beetle under the leaves, as well as aphids and scales.  I researched the issue a bit more and soon discovered that it appears that my young trees are affected by citrus greening.  I have a gallery of photos here:

http://www.focusingonnature.com/Secondary-Galleries/Miscellaneous/Citrus-issues/

So my question is now what?  I understand that when a tree gets this disease it can never get rid of it.  But it also sounds like regular use of topical and root drench insecticides as well as tenting might keep the problem in check.  They are small trees so it wouldn't be a big deal to build tents for them and give that a try.  Has anybody on this forum successfully reversed a citrus greening infection?

I don't really want to rip them out and buy new trees because I'm afraid the same thing will happen to them.

How do I know when a Pickering is ready for picking?  I can't seem to embed a picture for some reason but here's a link to a picture...

https://ibb.co/esgQGQ

My cocoplum privacy hedge has a whole bunch of ripe fruit on it now.  Aside from just eating them raw, is there anything else I can do with the ripe fruit?  They have a very mild semi sweet taste and the nuts are tasty as well. 

Sorry for the completely off topic post but I love this forum...it is so informative...and I'm looking for something similar related to palm talk.  The only thing I've found so far is a forum called Palmtalk.org but I've been "awaiting verification" since Saturday.  I can't log in to post.  I have some transplanted sabal palms that I need some serous TLC asap.  I was hoping somebody here might know of another useful discussion community for palms.