Yah, boron does make a big diff. The lychee is one of the few trees that I don't spray with boron, but perhaps I should change that. Thanks.

haha we need to start insuring our irrigation systems. why not insure the trees too!

Does this guy offer affordable home insurance too? I could sure use some of that right now. Hurricane insurance is absolutely bonkers here in Broward right now... the worst I've seen it in 15+ years.

y so serious??

Mark? That's just texan humor not coming across as well as it should given the medium.

No need for growing practices to become the basis for moral judgment. Conventional, organic, biodynamic, or a mix of all -- it's all good. Just use some common sense and be sure to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Don't forget the Dunning-Kruger effect. The more you actually know, the less you think you know and vice versa.

Agree, thanks for the info Weiss. If you get a chance, can you post some pix? I have a strong aversion to the west indian avocadoes and am always on the lookout for new hass cultivars that do well here.

In order to preserve the taproot, you'd really need to graft in situ (ie, plant the seed directly in the ground vs using a pot). Tree pots (long and narrow) can also help to preserve the taproot.

I'm not sure why they would have clipped the taproot. I know that neutering the taproot in mamey / canistel by flipping the seedling upside down and grafting onto the taproot can cause the tree to stay smaller. Perhaps encouraging surface roots could also help with nutrient uptake (by forcing more roots to stay in the nutrient rich top soil)?

However, I haven't found any reason to worry about the taproot one way or the other. The main thing you need to worry about is removing any circling roots (those that take the shape of the pot), as they will eventually strangle the tree, stunt growth, and compromise stability.

I think we're in agreement there. But, latex paint on an avocado tree certainly isn't mutually exclusive with those goals :-).

I'd say anything that conserves soil and soil health, forests, aquifers, and ocean health is good even though it's not a perfect world.  I hope you guys, Jeff and Mark, don't consider that a radical idea.  (Or call me a freakin' radical, whatever.)  Hey, how about Har's List of Essential Oddities?

Yah, it's gotten overboard. What I find humorous is that Bruce Ames (previous chair of biochem at Berkeley) proved that organic produce is higher in carcinogens than conventional back in the 80's.

Life is full of pendulum swings. In the 40's, 50's and 60's the general public was enamored with lab created foods, pesticides, etc, the mindset being that technology could improve on nature. All sorts of nutty pesticides were used back then, with reckless abandon. (My step-father grew up on a farm during this time period and ended up coming down with cancer in his 60's.)

Then, in the 60's and 70's a small group of folks began pushing against the pesticides of the day (eg, Silent Spring), and in the 80's the organic movement started to rise. Then, somewhere in the 2000's I guess, organic went mainstream and really took root in the millenial generation, who I think viewed it as some sort of counter-cultural ideal.

The EPA has come a long way since the 1960s, and modern pesticides (as well as worker protocols) render their use quite safe. But, the pendulum has swung very hard to the opposite extreme, where the mainstream mindset is that anything produced in a lab is harmful (and contrariwise anything originating in nature is good / beneficial).

The truth almost always lies somewhere in the middle of two extremes. However, it's human nature to polarize on extremes.

We are a country of fearful neurotics and hypochondriacs.  Here's a quote from a SoCal avocado growing group I belong to:

"I've heard a few people mention white washing the bark of your tree and I don't understand why one would need to paint a tree with a chemical based paint? I want all the trees in my yard to be 100% organic. so tell me what white washing is and why it's important? Is it important? I live in Claremont California."

My response:

$%*(@#@$$, so you've run a lab analysis on such painted tissue and found levels of "chemicals" exceed EPA standards, what exactly are those chemicals? 95% of the organic/natural movement is a joke based on fear and ignorance. Having said that I have been pushing a spray of kaolin clay wettable powder not because I'm a fearful neurotic but because it's cheap and a helluva lot easier to mix and apply. https://www.groworganic.com/products/surround-25-lb...

Don't know if Captan would help but it has no REI interval posted on our Aggie vineyard pesticide list.

The backstory on my OS tree (or trees I guess) -- I purchased several dozen OS mangoes from Walter Zill back in 2013 / 2014 (can't remember which year) and planted all of the seeds. From the dozens of sprouts, I selected the 2 that were most identical to the mother tree, both in terms of leaf appearance and sap smell (OS is polyembryonic, so the odds were high of finding a match).

When the seedlings were just a foot tall, I grafted them to a mature glenn that I had recently cut way back. Within 3 years, both flowered and fruited, producing a fruit identical to the mother tree. Both are identical in appearance, flavor, and habit to one another, giving me high confidence that both are indeed clones of the mother tree.

Both have been extremely vigorous -- laughably vigorous -- sending out telephone pole shoots that grow to 10 feet long in a single season (some of which flop over due to the weight).

Fruit set and retention is extremely good (5 - 6 fruits per panicle). However, only small portions of the canopy tend to flower, probably due to the vigor.

I think part of the issue is that the scions were grafted to a glenn that had been cut back quite heavily. Both sides seem to be calming down a bit, so I'm hopeful that next season I'll see more bloom.

Walter's tree, also a topwork onto a mature tree, was huge the last time I saw it. I know there have been reports of the growth being manageable, but perhaps that's only the case in the juvenile period of the tree's life?

That said, my favorite is still lemon zest :-).

Quote from: Cookie Monster on April 23, 2020, 01:34:08 PM

That's what I do.

Quote from: Oolie on April 22, 2020, 10:24:19 PM

Quote from: Viraldonutz on April 22, 2020, 05:15:14 PM

I'd LOVE to plant both... as well as about 30 other varieties!!!

But I was hoping to pare that 30 down to less than a dozen. 

You could always multi-graft and then prune off the limbs of the less desired ones.

Jeff, how productive is your OS? I am thinking of topworking part of my LM into OS. Compatible in terms of vigor and productivity?

Organza bags.

Jeff,When you say you're bagging them are you using plastic bags of some sort to  encase them, or are you using the fine screen type bags

Quote from: Cookie Monster on April 22, 2020, 11:21:21 AM

yep !! I've had to start spraying my jacks and soursops with fungicide. Jury still out on what's up with the annonas. I feel like it could have to do with the seed borer, which opens a pathway for disease. We've been bagging the annonas. Rollinia has also had a terrible problem with fungus / bacterial infection, likely due to seed borers. Growing in FL can be a pain in the neck!

Quote from: Capt Ram on April 22, 2020, 02:49:01 AM

Seems this disease doesn't only affect mangos
This appears to be the same thing on jackfruit and also on soursop, perhaps anonas
I'm going to have to start spraying my jackfruit
I've lost three of them this season.

yep !! I've had to start spraying my jacks and soursops with fungicide. Jury still out on what's up with the annonas. I feel like it could have to do with the seed borer, which opens a pathway for disease. We've been bagging the annonas. Rollinia has also had a terrible problem with fungus / bacterial infection, likely due to seed borers. Growing in FL can be a pain in the neck!

Seems this disease doesn't only affect mangos
This appears to be the same thing on jackfruit and also on soursop, perhaps anonas
I'm going to have to start spraying my jackfruit
I've lost three of them this season.

Some of the indo-chinese mangoes will have early fruits that have a washed out flavor (duncan for example). Later in the season, the flavor should intensify.

Yep, that's the major drawback. Very hard to put it on and tiring to use. But, then again, it's not that much harder than a conventional / manual backpack sprayer.

Quote from: shot on April 16, 2020, 03:18:20 PM

Getting me a stihl 450 duster / mistblower for the inaccessible spots.What do you think?mist blowers are very efficient!

I have an older mistblower the weight of that tank especially up high is a real backbreaker. I have to ease into mine by backing into it while it is on a table. They do lift leaves up well into a large tree. I see the stihl 450 is 28 pounds without 14 liter tank and water weighs 2 pounds/liter, woops 28+28= 56 pounds! Pretty much the same as my Solo 423 better eat planty of oatmeal for breakfast, it will eat your lunch for you.

I have a theory as to why those bloomed. We had pretty severe drought conditions in March and early April. Then during the first few days of April, the temps dropped a good 15 degrees. I think the drought set some of the trees up to be a bit more sensitive to the temp drop, so when it happened, they pushed blooms.

Still pretty amazing nonetheless.