The Tropical Fruit Forum

Citrus trees -
I have 7 citrus trees;

Planted by the previous owner:
#1.
An unknown orange - stringy and tough to eat, but makes an excellent tasty juice.
I assume it is a Valencia.
I strip the tree's fruit, then juice and freeze everything, making several gallons of fresh juice every winter.

#2.
An unknown tangerine - Purely guessing that it may be a Dancy, ... or(?).
The tree has been badly treated by a nearby volcanic eruption, but now into it's 4th season after, and seems to be recovering nicely.
not much fruit yet, but they're good, and it look better every year.

#3.
A small puny looking Meyer Lemon.
I assume the soil is thin.
It also has periods of water accumulation after heavy rains.
So far, it has never done well.
I don't think it ever will.
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I put in a few more:
#4.
A miniature Satsuma Tangerine
Good, just not much fruit so far.
#5.
A Honey (Murcott) Tangerine, which is my main favorite eating fruit, keeps me eating 4 or more fruit a day while they're ripe on the tree.
By the time I get all these eaten, the orange juice is ready to go.
#6.
A Tahitian Lime - doesn't seem to be doing all that well so far - we'll see:  destined to be for lime juice and flavoring for drinking water. 
#7.
A Kaffir Lime for cooking with it's leaves.
I like cooking curries and such with the leaves year around, but don't consider the fruit edible.       
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So far, the Honey is the main problem.
All the others are resistant.
It has had fungus on the leaves and fruit the last couple of years, probably Canker or Scab.
It doesn't hurt the fruit noticeably, but is unsightly.
I hate spraying trees.
Is there an effective systemic fungicide that can be sprayed on the ground around the tree to get rid of it?      

In the past we've had rats climb our avo trees to reach the fruit.
Then, they would gnaw small areas on the fruit hanging from the tree, looking for ripe fruit, damaging a very high percentage of them.
I lost a lot of avos to rats gnawing the fruit.

I tried several things to control them, almost all were very ineffectual.
Curling and placing 12" bands of sheet metal around the tree trunks and cutting weeds back so they can't be climbed to reach the canopy seem to be doing the job.
It only needs to be done as the fruit nears ripening and becomes edible.
Plus, cutting their food availability has cut the rats' numbers drastically.

So question: 
The bands are 12" aluminum sheet roof flashing, cut to length and manually curled to snugly fit around the tree's trunk.
They are not nailed so that they can expand to accommodate growth of the trunk, and not strangle it.
I put them on 3 grafted, double trunk trees 1-1/2  years ago. 
So far, my only concern is the bands being on the tree trunks for long periods and any potential damage they might cause the tree.

Is there any need for concern?



 

I have 1 orange tree that was planted by the previous owner.
It seems to be a Valencia.
The fruit has tough and stringy section membranes, but makes delicious juice.
It is my juice tree.
I fill jars putting many into the freezer extending the juice season.

I planted 3 Avocados:  Sharwil, Ota, and Lamb Hass, giving almost year around Avo fruit:
Sharwil - Fall and winter; Ota - winter and spring; Lamb Hass -  summer.

There were two Tangerines put in by the previous owner:  one Honey not sure of the second but think it might be a Dancy.
I planted a second Honey and a Satsuma giving a total of 4 Tangerines.
I like tangerunes, especially Honey and Satsuma.

There were two Lemons planted by the previous owner: A small Meyer and a larger Eureka.
The Eureka was badly damaged by falling wind blown trees and died leaving just the Meyer.
I also added Tahitian and Kaffir Limes, and some non citrus: a Jaboticaba, a Longan and a Mulberry.
There were some dwarf Apple Bananas put in by the previous owner.
I added a planting of tall Apples.

I get fruit year around with loads in fall-winter-spring.   
I have to east fruit like mad in the fall-winter-spring to keep it from wasting.
The fallen fruit under the trees needs to be kept cleaned up to keep from drawing pigs or rats into our yard.
Rat control is a serious need, got 2 cats, and set poison bait boxes out when the avos begin ripening to keep them out of the trees.
All fruits need to be picked just before they begin to ripen, or the rats will climb the trees and gnaw on them.

I started out to discuss a few of the problems I've has with some.
This has gotten too big.
I'll address those in other threads at a later time.

Oops, Forgot Pineapples, just put 60+  in, mixed yellow and white.
 

I've definitely had problems with birds eating young developing fruit from out trees.
They have definitely eaten young Longan and Lime from the trees.
The have also eaten flower buds from various orchids in trees around the yard.

I had not considered that they might be attacking our avocados.
Our Sharwil has begun to bloom, reminding me that the avo trees do seem to loose a fair number of small newly set fruit.
The other two avo trees will also soon be blooming.

I had assumed it was just young trees aborting excess fruit.
But now, I'm thinking it might be birds eating the young avo fruit.

I have bought netting to proterct the Longan.
I'm thinking of netting the Sharwil to see if the small fruit loss stops.
I'm also thinking of putting a bomb on out neighbor's bird feeder.
What is the relationship between birds and avos?

I have 3 types of avocados in our back yard, Sharwil, Lamb Hass, and Ota.
They are young and have been bearing for 3 to 4 years now.
We had a volcanic eruption  that lasted about 3 months in 2018.
It was about a mile away.
we had volcanic gasses throughout that period with occasional very heavy concentrations.

All 3 are having similar but different problems right now.
I am only addressing the Sharwil right now.

In their first 2 years, they ripened in the winter, as they should have.
They were large and very tasty, but not many being young.

Last year the Sharwil's did very poorly, very few fruit and small in size.
They dropped early and rats got to them before I could.
Didn't get too taste them.
This year they look to be recovering, ... many more, and much larger fruit.
But, they are still ripening early, summer/fall opposed to expected winter.
Have been gathering newly fallen and cutting ready fruit from the tree.

They are watery.
Never has this problem with them before.
The only reason I can think of is the early ripening.

Other possibilities or experiences?

I have 3 types of avo trees, Sharwil, Lamb-Hass and Ota.
The Sharwil and the Ota have type B flowers.
The Lamb-Hass has Type A.
All three bore fruit last season for the first time.

The Sharwil and the Lamb-Hass bloom very close together.
Fertilization between them seems to take place readily.

The Ota blooms about a month or more behind the other two.
It has carried very few fruit the last couple of seasons.

The present season has been complicated by a very close by volcanic eruption.
The trees sustained minor damage from the SOx gasses about the time the fruit were setting, but are now recovering nicely.
The trees dropped a lot of the developing fruit.
The Lamb-Hass still has more fruit than it did last year.

Judging what is going on with them from the present results may not be valid because of effects from the eruption.
But, there seems to be a relationship between the blooming times and a lack of fruit setting on the Ota.

If the offset of the flowering times does affect pollination, what ways can it be dealt with to increase the yield from the Ota?

One of the 1st trees I added to our property was a Biew Kiew Longan.
It was a young grafted sapling.
It has now been in place for about 2 years.
It has reached a maximum height of about 8'.


One thing I have noticed about it is that it has 2 growth spurts each year, one in the early spring and again [now] in late summer.
I have just figured out that the spring growth spurt is when it should be flowering in stead of making new stems and leaves, while the one now should be the normal growth period for new stems and leaves.

I'm convinced that this tree should be able to bear fruit next spring/summer. I just need to  figure out how to encourage it to do so.
It is planted in an area of newly made soil. I made it from cinders and a combination of green and composted mulch.
I think I was a bit light on the organic [mulch] components.
I am now bringing in and spreading composted mulch, and adding a general purpose pk type fertilizer as well as dolomite.
I am being careful to not over do it.

This is one of the newly built areas with the longan at the far left.



I have proven to myself that paying attention to nutrition makes a difference with avocados fruiting or not.
I think that may also apply to the longan.

Any practical advice for the longan?