Author Topic: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?  (Read 6520 times)

Mr. Clean

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Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« on: February 26, 2013, 01:12:14 AM »
My Rollinia is flowering.  Do I need to do anything to give the Rollinia the best change of fruiting, like spraying copper?
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FlyingFoxFruits

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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #1 on: February 26, 2013, 01:16:44 AM »
just keep it happy, and keep doing what you've been doing.

It sometimes just takes a while for the trees to start setting fruits, especially if they've just started flowering.

It seems like only about 5% of all the blooms, ever make it to fruition.
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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #2 on: February 26, 2013, 12:26:09 PM »
Agree with Adam and would add that you should not be shocked if the flowers set fruit and then the fruits turn dark and fall off while they are still small.  Mine did that for two years before it held a fruit to maturity. I think my tree was basically happy during that time. I do wonder if this is a trait of the tree in general, or if this was idiosyncratic to my tree.  Seems once the fruits get about ping pong ball size they will mature without turning black. At least that was my experience. Then, later, the first year post mature fruiting, my tree died in one of our great floods.  The fruit was barely mediocre anyway.  No great loss.
Harry
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cbss_daviefl

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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #3 on: February 26, 2013, 02:03:53 PM »
My tree flowered for the first time last year after being in the ground for two years.  Around 4 fruit set, none of them made it to 1 inch before blackening.  That house is now a rental property so I have no idea what is happening this year.  I guess I should drop by and take a look at it, and other things.  I remember Har saying lack of zinc or boron may be an issue preventing fruit set in some trees, however his comments were not directed toward rollinia. Maybe a foliar nutrient spray would help?  Also, for other family members, regular irrigation is recommended during flowering and fruit development by UofF.
Brandon

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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #4 on: February 26, 2013, 02:40:30 PM »
Organic fertilizer/compost/manure and lots of water, at least 2 times a week....deep watering.  They love water. My tree has at least one hundred flowers (100). Maybe , I am exaggerating a bit, between 87 and 96 for sure!

BMc

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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #5 on: February 26, 2013, 05:04:27 PM »
Yeah, I posted images of a massive fruit set on my rollinia as a result of hand pollinating in anotehr thread. On the limb pictured, which had 20+ fruit, it has held just one fruit. Tree overall has a few less than 30 fruit out of about 100 originally set. Hand pollination certainly increases fruit set, but the tree will only ever hold what it wants to hold. My tree gets heaps of water - the ground under it has been jelly for many weeks, but it is well drained (We've just had our fourth big Low of the season, with another on the way now  :-\ ). Mine also has a huuuge tap root and very little near surface roots, so deep watering helps feed it and keep it healthy. Mine would have had probably 2000 flowers as a conservative estimate this season for the 100 fruit set and sub-30 fruit held...

luc

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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2013, 02:15:31 PM »
Same thing here , poor fruit set and lots of die back even some big branches and entire trees . I know everybody says that they love lots of water but my best producing tree is totally neglected , planted out side the property and gets water when I remember....never the less it is one of my favorite fruits and I planted more on the new lot .
No time for hand pollinating ...
Luc Vleeracker
Puerto Vallarta
Mexico , Pacific coast.
20 degrees north

Jen

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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2013, 07:34:53 PM »
My tree has had a great fruit set thanks to me obsessively going out every afternoon with my paintbrush and hand pollinating  ;D but I have lost a lot of fruit to what I assume is a fungal disease - anthracnose maybe?, here is the latest.


I spray sporadically with copper &/or mancozeb (probably not enough for complete effectiveness) and have still ended up with some fairly decent fruit which hopefully will ripen fairly soon I think, a lot earlier than last year (May/June):

FloridaGreenMan

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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #8 on: February 27, 2013, 09:20:50 PM »
My big Rollinia (seedling) bloomed for 2 years before it set fruit and has been very dependable since. Never had much luck with hand pollination when I did try. I don't use much fertilizer if any and it grows like a weed. I have cut it back several times to control the size. Right now it has around a dozen nice sized fruits. Some years I get 2 crops, one large and one smaller one.     




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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #10 on: February 28, 2013, 12:35:38 AM »
Never hand pollinate the rollinias here and they fruit just fine. I think they like high humidity for the flowers to set. Never noticed young fruits turning black, except during exceptionally heavy rain for very long time, and then they get moldy.
Oscar

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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #11 on: February 28, 2013, 12:38:38 AM »
Here is a lot of info.

http://era.deedi.qld.gov.au/1653/6/5probcus.pdf

Nice link! But it is for what the Australians call custard apple, which for us is atemoya, not for rollinia. Probably though some of the advice on deficiencies is very similar.
Oscar

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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #12 on: February 28, 2013, 02:11:55 AM »
Here is a lot of info.

http://era.deedi.qld.gov.au/1653/6/5probcus.pdf

Nice link! But it is for what the Australians call custard apple, which for us is atemoya, not for rollinia. Probably though some of the advice on deficiencies is very similar.

Well i guess it will have usable info, i love the Ozzy sites though. They have such extended info about plants. Holland also has good agriculture university's but i have never seen usable info about the tropics from them. I even had some friends studying there and went to Africa for investigations.

Where are the American info sites? I like Fairchild with their video's but for the rest i cannot find good american  info about growing fruits and all the problems that come with it.


fruitlovers

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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #13 on: February 28, 2013, 05:14:27 AM »
Hawaii and Florida both have universities supplying pretty good amounts of information on tropical fruits (see links on http://fruitlovers.com/megalinks.html), but it's not as good or in depth as Australian sites on many topics.
You have to understand that Australia has more of a vested interest in that kind of research as their country has much larger tropical areas that produce tropical fruits. Holland has zero, and the USA very very little (small part of south Florida, Hawaii, PR, Virgin Islands). So if you take into consideration that USA produces very small amounts of tropical fruit they have done quite a lot of research on information for producing those tiny amounts. I think most of that information really ends up getting exported to other countries who in turn export products for american companies.
The countries that should really provide the most access to such information on their research are the countries that produce the most tropical fruits, like Thailand, Malaysia, Phillippines, Indonesia, India, etc. Almost all the info in Thailand is in Thai language, so good luck reading any of it!  ::)
Oscar

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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #14 on: February 28, 2013, 07:00:12 AM »
Yes i agree that the Asian country's should publish more in english language. Also the spanish/portuguese tropical country's should do that so we all can learn from eachothers experiences.

I checked some megalinks on your site about tropical fruits but the Ozzy's have much better websites. More basic and easyier to find the practical info that you want to see as a hobby grower.

Why Holland has tropical agriculture at the university i don't know. Maybe that is a remaining of the past when we had more colony's. Now we invite students from 3rd world to study in Holland so they can learn how grow crops in their homecountry's, those students get much discount or can even come for free.

I think most fruit-farmers in Asia have no time to go write their experiences on the web. And if they can speak/write english then they propably are not farmers but will find a better paying job.  Also if they find some trick how to double their crops i guess they will keep it secret and profit from that.

Farmers in 3rd world country's produce what the rich West asks from them. If we need biodiesel for our cars then they will make that, cut down the jungle (sell the wood) and produce oil for us. If we order cheap corn to feed our pigs (genetical modified corn from Brasil) then they send us huge vessels full of that. Holland produces so much pork that we even export it to Asia.

On Koh Samui thailand (tourist island something like Hawaii) there was a rule to not build higher buildings then the highest palmtree. Then they cut the palmtree's  so they can build huge hotels for tourists. That's how it goes.

Guanabanus

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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #15 on: February 28, 2013, 10:09:14 AM »
For an information site in the United States (for materials published through the late 1990's), see

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrops/   References section.

This contains web versions of many books, including Julia Morton's Fruits of Warm Climates, and a book translated from Spanish, Neglected Crops--- 1492 from another perspective, in which I wrote the chapter on Annona.

For information in English from Brazil, government agencies INPA and EMBRAPA and others do often publish English editions of their books.
Har

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Re: Rollinia Flowering - What to do to get it to fruit?
« Reply #16 on: February 28, 2013, 11:22:53 PM »
"I think most fruit-farmers in Asia have no time to go write their experiences on the web. And if they can speak/write english then they propably are not farmers but will find a better paying job."

None of the information sites you are reading are written by farmers, whether they be in Asia, Australia, USA, or anywhere else. These are almost always government agencies, universities, or private authors.
Oscar