Jakfruit 2016

[bsbullie]

It was a three gallon tree but grew quickly. The fruits have formed higher up the tree this time, which makes me hopeful that the quality will be better.

The tree is still extremely young. Bangkok Lemon fruit tend to be large.  A young tree like yours will most likely not be able to develop or hold a fruit of normal size for this variety.  I would expect the worst for these fruit also, that way expectations will be low so that if the fruit turn out good, you will be pleasantly surprised.

[ftmyersfruit]

If it's from echo, it's likely the big tree by the main nursery. It is very productive and likely a seesling. I know the propagation manager changes from one to time. The last one is a member of the caloosa club now so she may know. I will see if I can find out.

[Aaron]

So I spoke with some people here they said that they remember Hopkins taking budwood from one of the trees in the lowlands area.  Those trees are all seedlings of NS1 and I'm assuming that's what they are still propagating at Hopkins. We do not carry anything in our nursery called "ECHO".  Ive seen the echo jackfruit and a echo sweet barbados cherry listed on other sites before but as far as i know those could have originated from here but other nurseries gave them the echo name.

[cbss_daviefl]

Thanks for the effort!  With some luck, I will have a fruit or two for observation and taste assessment in 4 -5 months.  The tree is vigorous and precocious in my yard.  It is around 12 ft tall and 6 ft wide and was planted on 3/30/14 from a 3 gal.  This is the earliest time to fruiting for a grafted tree in my yard so far beating 17 grafted jackfruit trees. I have 8 trees still in the running. 

[cbss_daviefl]

Excalibur red with a female after I guessed it wouldn't this year.  Shows how much I know!








Conjoined fruit on Cristella

[cmichael258]

Excalibur red with a female after I guessed it wouldn't this year.  Shows how much I know!








Conjoined fruit on Cristella

Very healthy looking tree! How old is it?

[fisherking73]

Not to change topics lol how did your anonas do last year?

[Sleepdoc]

Nothing yet on my Excalibur Red.  You are giving me hope though!

[cbss_daviefl]

Here is a picture of 3 of my 20+ pound fruit from my grafted Bangkok lemon tree.  The first female emerged on 12/5 so I am hoping these are close.  No smell and still hard but they sound solid when tapped.



Sadly, 3.5 years in the ground.  It should be twice as big. I think that not watering during dry months stunted the tree.

Very healthy looking tree! How old is it?

I think the dry summer we had combined with the young age of my trees kept the fruit small, mostly seed. This year I did a better job with the irrigation and many this year are already bigger than the average sized fruits from last year.

Not to change topics lol how did your anonas do last year?

I am still seeing new females popping out. It is kind of crazy. It will be interesting to see if these make it and when the fruit will be ready.

Nothing yet on my Excalibur Red.  You are giving me hope though!

[cbss_daviefl]

A new seedling, number 3, has just pushed out its first female.  This is my largest Jakfruit tree at around 18ft tall by 12ft wide.  The funny thing is that this tree currently only has a single flowering stalk that I can find, so no males to pollinate this female.  It is also very dense so I do not think it will be pollinated by wind from the surrounding trees.  I think I will have to attempt a hand pollination or I will not get a fruit with bulbs.  The older flower in the picture is a she-male that will rot.  This seedling tree was sold to me by the Miami-Dade RFVC.  I was told it was a seedling of a tree they call Katie with orange/red bulbs and all seedlings from this Katie tree have produced excellent fruit so I took the gamble.   

[Sleepdoc]

That's a great looking tree.  I would definitely hand pollinate it. 

[JoeP450]

Picked my first fruit off my Bangkok lemon tree, weighed in at 19.2lbs, also a pic of the cleaned fruit and seeds. Flavor and texture is outstanding, and everything one could hope for in this fruit. Very happy I'm growing this!





-joep450

[johnb51]

Fantastic, Joe!

[cbss_daviefl]

Awesome Joe! 

What prompted you to pick the fruit? Did it get soft or start to smell or did you give it the tap test?  Do you recall when the tree flowered?

You are making my mouth water!  I am sooo ready to eat a fruit from my yard.  The wait is agonizing for me.

[JoeP450]

I had read that when the nearest leaf on the stem holding the fruit starts to brown, combined with some give of the fruit and fragrant smell is when to pick a jackfruit. This fruit had some give all over the fruit as well as fragrant sweet/funky smell but the nearest leaf to the fruit was still green so I picked it anyways and it was perfectly ripe. I've only picked this one fruit, so maybe the experts can chime in. Every few days I would go out and press on the fruit and gauge the give, it seemed like in a matter of a few days it went from rock solid to the whole fruit was soft, weird. Don't remember exactly how long ago this the tree flowered, because there was a span of months where it just kept flowering for months.

-joep450

[cbss_daviefl]

I harvested my first 2 jakfruits for 2016. The first was from my precocious seedling (12 lbs) and the second was from my grafted Bangkok lemon (8.2 lbs).  Both got soft on the tree, the first on Thursday and the second yesterday.  Today, they both went under the knife to face off in an informal taste test, featuring expert judge SleepDoc.  Both were poorly pollinated, the Bangkok lemon only had edible flesh in the lower half and the seedling was balanced but sparse.  The smell of the uncut fruit were very different.  The Bangkok lemon had a relatively stronger, potentially more offensive smell.  When cutting the fruit, both were low latex.  I did not feel the need to wash my hands during the 30+ minute feasting.  For texture, on the seeping ooze to rock hard scale, both fruit scored well, the BK lemon scoring a crunchy and the seedling getting a firm. Both fruit seemed a bit on the dry side, possibly from the early timing before the rainy season has really set in.  Both fruit grew relatively high in the tree, above 6 feet and not attached to major branches, which may be a factor?  Flavor-wise, neither fruit was a clear winner and I was quite happy eating either fruit. The young age of the trees was quite evident in the taste of the fruit and I believe they both will score top marks in the following years, possibly following months. 

Bangkok lemon on the left and precocious seedling on the right


Precocious seedling cross section

[Sleepdoc]

Excellent description and write up.  That seedling sure is impressive.  Toe to Toe with a grafted BKL .

[skhan]

Just putting it out there, if you have any extra I'd like to try some Bangkok lemon and some other quality jacks.
I've been a bit turned off since last year after only having a huge seedling jack. Still have some in the freezer.

[cbss_daviefl]

Dang Suria put out its first female flower.  The tree was planted on 4/7/13.  It is about 12 ft tall by 8 ft wide.  There are no male flowers on the tree. It will be a struggle to find pollen for this.

[ofdsurfer]

Here's my Excalibur red jackfruit.  It's fruiting for the first time and has already set five fruit, I'm going to limit it at three or four fruit this year.

Unless the color changes as the tree matures I guess I got a mislabeled Excalibur Red. Does anyone have any idea what cultivar this is?

[cbss_daviefl]

D'oh!

Maybe that is Excalibur or Excalibur Gold. SleepDoc has a fruiting tree of Excalibur. I don't remember if the fruit were long and skinny like that.

[Sleepdoc]

Nope, my "Excalibur" is not long and skinny like that.

Surfer - That sucks .  Hopefully the fruit is good.

[ofdsurfer]

Yeah I was really excited to try the Excalibur Red.   The fruit is pretty good it could be a bit more crunchy for my taste but that could have been my fault leaving it on the tree to long.

[Cookie Monster]

HAHAHA As much as I like excalibur, I think you pretty much have a 75% chance of the label matching any given tree, It's kind of a pot luck.

My excalibur gold is not long either.

[Mr. Clean]

So far:

J-31 - five fruit harvested, one left on tree
Bangkok Lemon - two fruit harvested, seven left on tree
Borneo Red - two fruit aborted, one left on tree
Seedling of Mai 1 - two fruit on tree
Seedling of NS 1 - one fruit on tree