high humidy sub-& tropicals?

[brian]

Since I've now realized my greenhouse midday humidity is far lower than I thought, I am thinking about trying to create a humid section for the plants that require it.  Long term I want to build another greenhouse for high-humidty, high minimum-temp plants. 

Can you tell me what tropical plants *require* high humidity?  So far I'm only aware of mangosteen and theobroma cacao (cocao).  What about other garcinias?  Eugenias?  Jabo?  Guava? 

I assume citrus, mango, and annonas are better off dry. 

[LycheeLust]

Abiu

[Bush2Beach]

I think its a much shorter list to ask which tropicals do not require high humidity. I can’t think of any besides Mango.

[brian]

I have an abiu that seems the be thriving, though.  And jackfruit, cherimoya, guavas.  Surely they can't be as moisture sensitive as theobroma and mangosteen?

[W.]

My guavas, jaboticabas, and cherimoyas seem to do fine for me in lower humidity. My guavas (Psidiums) and jaboticabas both put on new growth this winter. Interestingly, my lemon drop mangosteen has never grown that vigorously for me, but my imbe and achachairu both have doubled in size in the same time period in the same growing area.

[brian]

I have one red jaboticaba growing in a container that looks quite healthy but has been slow growing.  I have a whole bunch of garcinias but they aren't really thriving, which led me to start wondering about humidity.  Plus I just got a theobroma on a whim and I always hear about they need high humidity.  I sprouted a ton of tropical seeds of all types recently and I'm not sure how many will take to greenhouse life. 

[shpaz]

Guavas don't require any humidity for sure. My Pitangatuba and Barbados Cherry are also growing nicely in low humidity as well.

[brian]

Thank you.

I am starting to google search them all and see if I can find any more outliers.  Most say something like "prefers warm, humid climate" but I am not finding many that explicitly require it.

[lebmung]

Citrus grows very well with high humidity. I mist my plants every day in gh.

[TomekK]

Here’s my experience:

(Plants grown in a high humidity grow tent or in my dry indoors.

Cacao, theobromas, herranias- need humidity or they die. Might be a slow delicate or a quick defoliation, but low humidity will kill them eventually, unless one is extraordinarily lucky and has a plant which somehow survives.

Garcinias- I have only grown lemon drop and superior lemon drop for under a year from seed. Slow growing anyway, so hard to say about humidity. Leaves don’t look like they are being damaged by low humidity, but they could still be on seed reserves.

Rose apple (syzygium)- from PR, slight browning of leaves over two years, but not any real damage. Somewhat ironically it did not grow at all outside, but immediately started when came back inside (probably because of sunlight and repotting, but still). Seems to be good with low humidity.

Cherimoyas, Mamey Sapote- semi-deciduous, lose some leaves (cherimoya more than mamey), but that is to be expected. Seem to now care much about humidity. Perhaps slight browning of the tips, but nothing else.

Orange/citrus- no visible browning of leaves/other effect in low humidity.

Jaboticaba- leave tips brown in low humidity, do slightly but not as much in high humidity (2 year seedling).

Passion fruit/dragon fruit- no difference based on humidity. Big difference with light.

None of my plants react to low humidity as bad as theobromas/herranias. Other plants might do better in high humidity, like my garcinias, but high humidity seems not to be necessary for them to survive and even grow.

Moral of the story: cacao is a pain.

(So would be other ultra tropicals like Durio species or some annonas perhaps-anything from the rainforests of Borneo or the Amazon has a high chance of requiring extremely high humidity to survive)

[brian]

Thank you, TomekK.  The only syzygium I have is a malay apple, that seemed perfectly healthy its first summer then randomly died back 75% over the winter in the greenhouse.  It seems to be coming back but I am not sure what happened with it.

My cherimoya, atemoya, and sapotes seem perfectly happy in the greenhouse.  I know people are growing them in southern CA which is dry.

Citrus grows in arizona, texas, so I'm sure no issues there.  Mine are doing fantastic.

My dragon fruit grew so fast I had to get rid of it, it was too big and thorny for me.  Never tried passion vines.

My jabo also had brown tips last year, I assumed it was salt buildup or something.  I don't know much about them, mine is ~2yr also in a container.

I have some durian seedlings that keep growing but they got pretty yellow over the winter.  I was happy to see them even survive.

If only cacao and mangosteen are the outliers, that is good news to me.  I can manage heateasily but constantly humidity is harder.  I really need to get rainwater collection going as my municipal water is too hard to be spraying constantly.  Mark in TX seems to use it as his primary cooling, which also a huge boost to humidity. 

[W.]

I believe the brown tips on jaboticabas are due to pH or other soil issues, largely due to what they are watered with. I only water my jaboticabas with rain water, and with the exception of some of my Blue Grape jaboticabas (Myrciaria vexator), none of them seem to have any issues.

I agree with TomekK on the other plants he mentioned.

I will add that I have had problems growing soapberries (Sapindaceae) such as rambutan, lychee, and guinep. I have killed many of them, luckily all seedlings from fruit I have eaten. Their roots are sensitive to everything, and I think they like a high level of humidity.

[TomekK]

I believe the brown tips on jaboticabas are due to pH or other soil issues, largely due to what they are watered with. I only water my jaboticabas with rain water, and with the exception of some of my Blue Grape jaboticabas (Myrciaria vexator), none of them seem to have any issues.

I agree with TomekK on the other plants he mentioned.

I will add that I have had problems growing soapberries (Sapindaceae) such as rambutan, lychee, and guinep. I have killed many of them, luckily all seedlings from fruit I have eaten. Their roots are sensitive to everything, and I think they like a high level of humidity.

You’re probably right with jaboticaba brown tips being due to other problems. I’ve also had problems with pineapple guava, both that and jaboticaba have problems probably due to salt buildup. Though this year I put the jaboticaba in the grow tent and the 3 new leaves it’s grown since haven’t gotten brown tips, though they are a bit lighter shade of green.

Interesting about the soapberries. I’ve killed lychees and rambutans from seed, but my guineps seem to be doing quite well. Will have to transplant them this year so we’ll see how they do then.

[brian]

I have an air layered lychee that has been pretty stagnant, and I just started some rambutan seedlings for fun.  I also suspect soil issues for those, though.  Yet another remind to start collecting rainwater

[W.]

I believe the brown tips on jaboticabas are due to pH or other soil issues, largely due to what they are watered with. I only water my jaboticabas with rain water, and with the exception of some of my Blue Grape jaboticabas (Myrciaria vexator), none of them seem to have any issues.

I agree with TomekK on the other plants he mentioned.

I will add that I have had problems growing soapberries (Sapindaceae) such as rambutan, lychee, and guinep. I have killed many of them, luckily all seedlings from fruit I have eaten. Their roots are sensitive to everything, and I think they like a high level of humidity.

You’re probably right with jaboticaba brown tips being due to other problems. I’ve also had problems with pineapple guava, both that and jaboticaba have problems probably due to salt buildup. Though this year I put the jaboticaba in the grow tent and the 3 new leaves it’s grown since haven’t gotten brown tips, though they are a bit lighter shade of green.

Interesting about the soapberries. I’ve killed lychees and rambutans from seed, but my guineps seem to be doing quite well. Will have to transplant them this year so we’ll see how they do then.

I have several guinep seedlings right now, as well. They are looking healthy, which has caused me to delay transplanting them from their communal container into larger, individual pots. I have killed several in the past; none have survived very long under my care. I anticipate I will kill these soon enough.