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Messages - Ken Bee

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1
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Mangos in san diego
« on: December 13, 2023, 01:21:36 AM »
Hi Brad,

Your mangoes and cherimoya look really good.  Seedlings of a good variety can often be pretty tasty.

Ken

2
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Mangos in san diego
« on: December 09, 2023, 12:08:11 AM »
My mango trees are only in the ground for less than two years.  I picked off all the fruit earlier this year to focus on growing trees bigger... or I thought.  A few weeks ago, I saw a small wrinkle inedible fruit on the ground that really surprised me.  Up on further investigation, I found another bigger fruit hidden deep inside the tree.  It's from a Candy Corn seedling that I planted in 2019.  The black spot was from rubbing against the wrinkle fruit that fell.



3
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Starting a farm in Southern California
« on: November 20, 2023, 06:32:55 PM »
Hi Janet,

The farm looks great, I especially like the pond.  It takes so much work and resources to run a farm.  I wonder how many people here have a property dedicated to growing fruit in the Fallbrook/Bonsall/Escondido/Valley Center area?

Ken

4
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Painter cherilata in San Diego
« on: October 07, 2023, 11:03:16 PM »
Thats once clean graft  ::)  ;D

Good looking fruit Ken.  Hooe all is going well in the backwoods.  You too Jason.

Farm is looking better slowly.  Finally has something to share.

5
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Painter cherilata in San Diego
« on: October 07, 2023, 11:01:57 PM »
Good looking tree and fine looking fruit, Ken Bee.  Looking forward to my Cherilata fruiting in a couple years.  I’m currently top working one of my Cherimoya seedlings.  I purchased 10 scions earlier this year from Cytochrome Joe in FL and got 6 takes, even though we had a cold front drop the temps, a couple weeks after grafting, down to low 30s.  Now one scion is flowering.  Yes, I will remove any fruits that set, however unlikely.  I also want to nominate one of my grafts for the “graft of the year award”.  I call it the peephole graft method. 





Amazing skill!  Don't think I can do that.  ;D

6
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Painter cherilata in San Diego
« on: October 06, 2023, 12:38:09 AM »
Painter Cherilata grown unprotected on a east-facing hillside in San Diego.  It was grafted on a cherimoya rootstock in 2021.  The fruit self-pollinated last summer and grown to about a golf-ball size before winter hit and it stayed the same size through the winter.  The fruit continue to grow bigger once the weather warmed up in the spring.  Since this was my first cherilata, I wasn’t sure when to pick it.  So, I let it dropped on its own about two weeks ago into a mesh bag.  It took a few days more for it to soften up.  The fruit stayed firm with a mesmerizing ruby color inside and out.

Some people described its flavor as strawberry yogurt.  I would agree that there were hints of that.  I could also taste some good sweet dried plum flavor as well.  The texture was a little uneven with some part of the fruit firm, while other parts are custardy.  All the seeds from this fruit had not developed and remained small soft wrinkle shell.  The seed sacs were unappetizing though.  By the way my family ate all of it up quickly, I would say it is tasty.  Not bad for the first fruit on this small young tree. 









7
payment sent, No. 50, 9 trees.

8
Hi Bill,

I like to have 4 female and 2 male trees.  If we are getting new varieties, I will get more trees.  SoCal.  Escondido, CA

Ken

9
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Fruit party?
« on: June 29, 2022, 01:18:01 AM »
Early August looks good. 

Ken

10
I will take them if still available.  Thanks.

Ken

11
39.1 needs to change the quantity,
 
    Dongkui(东魁)  female qty: 2
    Black Diamond  female qty: 3
    WuSu(乌酥)  female qty: 3

Thanks,


Ken

12
    Dongkui(东魁)  female qty: 2
    Black Diamond  female qty: 2
    WuSu(乌酥)  female qty: 2

San Diego

Hi Bill,

I like to change my order to this,

    Dongkui(东魁)  female qty: 2
    Black Diamond  female qty: 3
    WuSu(乌酥)  female qty: 3

San Diego


Thanks,


Ken

13
    Dongkui(东魁)  female qty: 2
    Black Diamond  female qty: 2
    WuSu(乌酥)  female qty: 2

San Diego

14
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Cherimoya tree spacing?
« on: December 23, 2021, 07:33:19 PM »
Brad,  I plan to do mine 15x20' because I will drive a tractor through.  I would think 15x15 should be adequate on your property.  10x15 may also be workable if you don't mind doing more pruning.

Ken

15
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Cherimoya tasting /get together
« on: December 04, 2021, 08:45:29 PM »
Thanks Brad for hosting another great get together.  We had lots of delicious and unusual fruit to eat as usual.  A few of us couldn't ripen the cherimoya in time, including me.  Luckily Mark brought perfectly ripen annona fruit of various varieties for us to try.  It's great catching up with everyone.  Looking forward to the next fruit tasting event.

Ken

16
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Cherimoya tasting /get together
« on: November 29, 2021, 02:57:30 PM »
One of my Santa Rosa seedlings has its very first fruit ready for picking today.  I will bring it for tasting.  It's a good looking fruit.  It should taste ok, perhaps good.  We will find out.

Ken

17
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Cherimoya tasting /get together
« on: October 10, 2021, 02:08:29 PM »
yes, ready.

18
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Fruit party
« on: August 06, 2021, 08:04:42 PM »
Per Aug 5th press release, HLB was detected in a lemon and orange tree in a residential Oceanside neighborhood.  This detection triggers a 5-mile HLB quarantine to restrict the movement of citrus, a mandatory survey, and treatment of all citrus trees within 250-meters of the site. 

Although my property is not within the quarantine zone, it is uncomfortably within a few miles.  Maybe I won't bring citrus fruit after all.

https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/egov/Press_Releases/Press_Release.asp?PRnum=21-091

19
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Fruit party
« on: July 30, 2021, 02:11:15 AM »
Hi All, if one is taking citrus is there a preferred way of cleaning to satisfy peoples concerns about citrus greening?

Citrus fruit is fine especially after washing.  Just make sure don't let leaves and twigs hanging on the fruit.

20
Good luck with your tough growing conditions. Gary from Palm Springs used to be here a lot. He is in a suburban house. In his back yard and more (of course!) Gary planted fruit trees (mostly mangos) close together. They reinforced each other to retain moisture and shaded each other. I think he had a high stone/concrete block wall helping his efforts. Enough to create a wet mini-oasis in his dry area of California. He created his own wetter micro-climate. He admitted as much to me directly about 8 years ago on this forum. I believe Simon is well acquainted with Gary.

The video of a tour of Dr Richard Cambell's mango-centric farm near Miami. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeCrZC_5slU
He has an upper canopy of fast growing non-fruit trees that shade the fruit trees below. I think this would be a good approach in your so called hellscapes. Plant these "nurse" canopy trees to protect your young fruit trees. At a certain point when your orchard is established. When the fruit trees are mature enough to shade each other and become sun-resistant. Then you cut down all or some of these upper canopy trees. Or maybe cut their height in half.______ Perhaps inter planting banana stalks will shade young fruit trees enough. Moringa perhaps?

Also  I have seen photos of the large organic Keitt mango orchard in California. It was a few years ago but if iirc it was a three acre orchard out in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere meaning there was just bare dry, barely vegetated land surrounding it on all sides with some foothills rising in the distance. Find this guy, visit his farm and ask him how he established his Keitt orchard. Being organic and all he can probably name his Keitt selling price. As in how many large mango orchards are there in California? One? Two? Five? Cannot be more than five.

I am open to correction on any of the above__ :)

Hi Zands, 

Thanks for the advice and sharing your knowledge.  I believe the Keitt mango orchard you are referring to is near the Salton Sea, similar to what's in Palm Springs.  Besides Keitt, they have lots of VP too.  The condition there is much more extreme than mine.  They do whitewash their trees during summer.  I believe they are doing well and have expanded more mango acreages. 

I am only about 10 miles from the coast with ocean breeze every afternoon.  I am hoping that I don't need to go to extremes to grow fruit trees here.  But, I am prepared to do whatever it takes to get them going.

Ken

21
I’d start by slowing down and getting the feel for the land before you plant everything.  I know you wanna get stuff in fast but you gotta know your property before you drop in 300 trees.  Might be cheaper to lose a few root bound trees than having to take out a whole block of trees.  Plan, plan, plan and don’t skip steps.  Good luck, keep us updated.

Thanks, I will take everyone's advices seriously, take it slow, and get the basics done first.  I will update on my progress. 

Ken

22
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Fruit party
« on: July 26, 2021, 11:38:45 PM »
Looking forward to another great party.  I will most likely bring some citrus.

Ken

23
Ken, gophers don’t eat Cherimoya roots, they got word from the rats about parkinsons. I’ve planted alot of Cherimoya in gopher territory and never seen any signs of damage.

Hi Jonah,  Thanks for the confirmation.  Maybe we use cherimoya as a barrier around other fruit trees that are susceptible to gophers.

Ken

24
The idea that we have degraded the native habitat for gophers and thats why they eat crops sounds innacurate to me.  My property is surrounded by thousands of acres of pristine wilderness preseve on one side and a developed town on the other side.  Hiking through the wilderness area theres very little gopher activity.  You see the mounds but its just not very much.  Then you go into town and theres hundreds of them in the park thats being irrigated and in yards and everywhere.  Even my own lot, half of it is untouched and the other half I grow things on.  Of course they are attracted to the side full of tender green tasties being irrigated. 

For the first few years here I never cared about gophers.  I would tell people they dont hurt anything, and I let them be.  At the same time I was planting more trees and laying more irrigation lines down and building up the orchard.  After about 3 years the trees started growing nicely and things were starting to look good and of course gopher damage started happening.  Trees would get damaged and die or get severly stunted.  Theres even a few trees here still stunted from being damaged by gophers 3 years ago.  So I started using gopher baskets, weaving them out of half inch chicken wire and planting trees into those.  It helped to prevent trees from being killed but the same thing happened, trees would still get damaged and stunted because the gopher will just eat everything thats outside the cage.  So finally, after meeting up with Simon and hearing it from him and my 70 year old neighbor, I needed to start trapping and killing them or the damage would continue. 

So I got macabee traps and learned to trap them.  It wasnt very successful at first but after a year or so of practicing and then switching to smaller traps, my success rate went way up and that year I killed around 50 gophers and cleared my 2 acre growing area.  The next door neighbor has a lawn and it was full of gophers so I helped him clear those out too.  Now we still get gophers fairly often but its 1 or 2 at a time and they are easy to spot.  When you clear out a gopher, you need to kick over their mounds so theres no old mounds around.  That will help you know if its new activity or old activity.  Whenever I see new mounds, its like a routine, go get the trapline traps, find the tunnel, dig a hole and open both sides of the tunnel up with a hori hori knife and insert the traps.  Stick a weed in there and cover the entrance with a rock and dirt to block the light.  I always get them now before they have a chance to damage anything.  No more dead or stunted trees.  And the numbers are low enough its obvious if theres a new gopher in the area.  And its easily maintained at or near zero gophers.  Ive got around 4 acres now totally cleared of them and have not had any damaged or dead plants in years.  The benefits of doing this for me far outweigh any kind of benefit they may provide.  I have doubts thst they provide much of any benefits to be honest.  That sounds like wishful thinking.  And planting extra food for them to eat hoping they will leave alone the other things sounds like a recipe for mass breeding and amplification of the problem.

Not to pee pee on the parade, Im just being honest because when things get posted on the internet then they get repeated.  So Im throwing out my opinion on this and people can get a variety of opions and decide what to believe and how to procede with these pests.

Thanks for sharing your first-hand experience dealing with gophers.  Time to load up on the trapline traps.  I wonder if I can get a volume discount on them. ::)

Ken

25
I'd be surprised if your numbers are quite that high, gophers don't like each other. I only have two at a time on my half acre unless they are breeding.

It helps to collapse any tunnels you find, too. Not only is it a highway for future gophers, it can route your irrigation away from trees.

Hopefully it is not that high.  Good tip on collapsing tunnels.  Thanks,

Ken

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