The Tropical Fruit Forum

I'd love a sumo tree also in central Florida.

As for the fruit, my local whole foods has been carrying them for the last month or so.

Sadly, I've gone through dozens and no seeds 

Sorry folks - all the seeds that I had were put in the mail yesterday around 10am and only 3 forum members had gotten to me in time.

I had these laying around the house for a few weeks already and the wife was bugging me to use them or give them away or use them and from what I had read they germinate best if they're put into dirt within 30 days so.

If I get more I'll post up.  The last few times I was in whole foods they had soursop fruit but none of the fruit was in good shape and I'm not going to spend $10.00 a pound to end up throwing away the fruit.

Well the tree is finally showing signs of coming back to life as some leaves have started to push through - just the very, very beginnings - so the leaf drop lasted 2 months.

I did a general fertilizer application of the HD citrus/avocado mix about 2 weeks ago after I cleared out all the weeds in my tree mulch but will add another round of specialized fert when I get back from my business trip this weekend.

I had high hopes of the tree coming back as the branches remained a nice vibrant green but when I compared that tree to the key lime I have, man, that key lime bounced back sooooo much quicker than the meyer lemon did I was getting worried.

In the long run the only citrus I lost to the cold was a "orange-skinned lime".  I can't remember what the name is off-hand but it was very, very sour, so I wasn't a big fan on taste, but it produced a ton of fruit for such a small tree, so ultimately I'm not worried about replacing that one.

Getting back to them Meyer Lemon, with all the down time the tree had from the leaf drop, if I end up getting any bloom or fruit set, should I pick it off this year to let the tree concentrate on getting healthier and stronger, or is it one of those cases that the tree will only hold the fruit that its strong enough to hold like most citrus?

Thanks all.

dc

I'll even pay the postage if anybody wants them that can't get em.  I have about 50 of them.  PM me your address and I'll drop them in the mail on Tuesday.

Viking Guy,

Just checked out that 247garden place.  Thank you very much for posting that. 

dc

So, my Meyer Lemon lost all but 1 of its leaves in the lovely cold snap we had a few weeks ago but it hasn't started flushing any new growth yet.

I pruned the tree to shape it a bit, and the branches are still a nice green color, but I'm getting worried as my Key Lime that dropped 100% of its leaves has flushed and filled in its canopy wonderfully.

So, my 3 year old grafted "la nina" (P.R. variety of size XXL Mangos) has flowered profusely and I now have numerous BB size fruit on those panicles.  As I've read its way too early to let any of the fruit stay, so I'm going to trim the panicles back.

Should I break off / cut off the extension of the panicle (the individual branch that held the flowers and now holds the bb's) where it hits the main branch, or should I just cut the entire length of the panicle off?

On a bright note, the weight of the flowers has taken the tree from a rather upright tree and spread the canopy out crazy wide.  Its now about 7 feet wide where it had been about 2 feet wide before.  I'm thinking of adding some weight to the branches to keep the canopy wide open like it is now for the future growth - any thoughts on that?

thanks

dc

Here's my update on apres freeze garden.

Lost:  9 seedling mango (4x atulfo, 5x store boughts), 1 seedling duncan grapefruit, 6x papaya, numerous mid-size bananas and about 10lbs of sweat for moving all my potted plants indoors and then out again.

Key Lime - lost 95% of its leaves and had a bunch of branch die back.  I pruned the deadwood and it started flushing new growth about 10 days ago.  Was in ground for about 1.5 years and bought at HD.



Meyer Lemon - lost all its leaves but 1 and also had a bunch of branch die back.  Deadwood pruned back but no flush yet.  Was in the ground for about 1.5 years and bought at HD.



Duncan grapefruit seedling.  This little guy was just about 1 year old when the freeze hit and had been in the ground about 7 months.  It was 18 inches before the freeze and now its down to about 4.5 or 5 inches.  After trimming the deadwood off the top 10 days ago it has also started flushing nicely.



Haas seedling avocado.  This one's a bit interesting.  I planted 3 avocado seeds into the same hole last august but only 1 of them sprouted.  It got to about 12 inches tall before the freeze and ended up freezing all the way to the stems.  It bounced back nicely, but here's the surprise.  One of the other pits I put in the ground that never sprouted last year sprouted now !!  It's the one on the left.  Wasn't expecting that.



Florida prince peach.  Just starting to push out some growth.  Should be no issues with this one.



Bananas were hammered.  I've kept cutting back all the dead/decaying tissue and have a stump or two pushing out growth.  Still holding off hope for some nanners this year but not sure.  Great new growth on the bottom of them all though.



Pineapple patch was where I put the most effort into saving as it is close to our house and has a southern face so it warms up earlier in the day.  I put paint drop cloth over the pineappples and ran an electric heater about 7 nights this year.  They seem to be fine except that one that is starting to yellow up a bit.  All pineapples are dole twist-tops from the store that I just stuck into the ground and they rooted.

Thanks 4 the feedback folks.  I got a nice soursop and 2 vsry sweer yellow dragon fruit instead.

None of the 3 stems that i had rooted as they all started to rot.

The seeds have sprouted fantastically and are outgrowing the red df seeds that I started a month earlier.

Quote from: FamilyJ on January 22, 2018, 04:59:54 PM

Anyone think it possible that piece off dragonfruit will grow

anyone able to root it? I got a smaller stem last week and tried to root it. Will check in a few weeks...

While I was able to bring my potted ones in doors, all the seedlings that I had planted died from the multiple freezes.  Being small still, I mounded the base of the mangos with mulch and put blankets and towels over them and I hoped the ground radiation was going to be enough to keep them safe, but nope.  Only 1 survived the first freeze but that one went to plant heaven the night we hit 25.

The next door neighbor with the home depot special put coverings over the tree and a bucket of water alongside the tree.  The tree handled the 30 degree night ok (the first 2 days), but the second freeze we had resulted in the outer leaves being completely fried and about 85% of the inner leaves were in bad shape.

I haven't seen the NDM to see how that one is going.

All my mangos in pots were brought inside for the freezes but were left outside on the mid 30 degree nights and are doing well.  They're back outside now and 2 of them have had recent flushes and one of the trees has pannicles forming - that tree is certainly to young to bear but I'm going to cut any fruit off if any does happen to take.

All my other potted trees were brought in during the freeze nights but did amazingly well during the mid 30's temps we had.  My longans, cherimoyas and atemoya seedlings are doing well and the longans are flushing now with a new growth spurt after that cold.  Also surprised a bit by some of my avocado seedlings, as I had started 14 seeds (2x florida, 12x hass) in the beginning of December and left those out in the cold (again, brought in for the freeze nights but not the mid 30's) and 8 of those have pushed growth out this last week and it looks like another 3 or so are ready any day to send up their first shoot.  The cold may have slowed down their germination but most look to have taken.  I know avocados are generally easy to grow but I'm hoping that having them sprout while enduring mid 30's well help develop a tree that can better stand these "artic" cold blasts.

I probably won't put any more seedling mangos in the ground here since I'll only be in this house for another year, but it was a good lesson to learn cheaply since they were just seedlings.

So I purchased a few more of these today and I bought the ones with the pieces of the DF stem on them still.

Is there anything special I should do to them to make sure they take?
- Rooting hormone?
- Making a newer cut at the base to encourage root growth?
- Should I use a "humidifier" - ie, since I'm using red solo cups do I put a plastic bag over the cups?

thanks

Ok, so I got hammered like most of us, and the blankets and protection I tried using didn't work for the tropicals I had in the ground.

No big loss since most of my plants were from seed and experimental at best, but now what do I do with my bananas, papayas and seedling mangos?

One of my bananas was about 5ft tall, the rest were about 3ft tall.  Do I remove the dead leaves, chop down the stalk or just let it be to provide protection, though it would be limited, to any pups that start coming out, or will the 5ft plant start to push new growth out?

As for the papaya, do I strip off the dead leaves and keep the main stalk in hopes of it coming back?  I had about 8 papayas that were about 2 feet tall and just starting to flower.

The mangos that I lost were all about 1.5 years old and less than 2ft tall (mainly altaufo).  They were small but bushy and leafy.  Do I just leave them in the grounds in hope they'll pop back up or just dig em out.

Lastly I had 3 seedling grapefruit.  1 looks to be completely fried but the other 2 only lost the new growth flush.  I assume I trim that back and those should bounce back, or is there something else.

One more - since its been so dry out lately, should I water now that we're back into the '70s or try to keep them in a bit of a hibernated state in fear of another frost/freeze happening.

Thanks