Tropical Fruit Forum - International Tropical Fruit Growers

I was thinking maybe the coffee or chocolate ones or something like that.  We have a Fuyu tree.  I like ones that dont have to be mush to eat.

I never tried Coffee Cake or Chocolate persimmons, but I heard they are very good. According to Dave Wilson website ( https://www.davewilson.com/product-information/product/persimmons ), Chocolate persimmon is astringent until ripe, and Coffee Cake is non-astringent but needs a pollinator (e.g. Chocolate persimmon).

I ordered scionwood for both from Fruitwood nursery ( https://fruitwoodnursery.com/persimmon-scionwood-diospyros-kaki ). They have many other varieties as well.

My reed tree set fruit for the first time this year.  They're sizing up quickly. Already baseball size. I should be harvesting them next year right? Is that normal? For them to get so large so fast? It's on toro canyon rootstock.

Your tree looks big. Yes, the fruit will ripen in a year.
You can check 2-year time lapse of my Reed and Lamb Hass avocado trees: https://youtu.be/Z6kESLYFUr8

Quote from: V on August 01, 2020, 05:15:34 PM

You have a good selection of subtropicals. How old are your mango trees?

I bought the Guava, PPK and Orange Sherbet mangos from Frank (JF) in May 2019. They put out a bit of vegetative growth later that summer, but the Guava and Orange Sherbet are on their first major flush right now, with no blooms in sight, which is pretty incredible, considering they received no winter protection. Unfortunately, the PPK decided to bloom in May, and has no shown no signs of wanting to grow further.

The Turpentine is actually the water sprouts off of a Pickering that I picked up from Champa or Mimosa in 2017 (Florida rootstock). The Pickering didn't do well so I let the Turpentine rootstock take off and it's done surprisingly well (good shape, no drooping or flowering). I'll probably graft on SweetTart at some point in the future.

First picture is of my Orange Sherbet, the second is my Turpentine.

Nice looking mango trees! Since Orange Sherbet is polyembryonic, could your tree be grown from seed? That would explain why it doesn't flower yet (a good thing!). The same applies to Turpentine mango.

Grafted mango trees definitely bloom a lot and have about one flush of growth after the bloom. As discussed in this forum, we should only plant seedlings and let them grow to the size we like. Then graft, if needed.

I planted one 5 galon Manila seedling last year and one this year. I also planted 2 Sweet Tart seeds and 2 CAC seeds. The seeds just sprouted. These are polyembryonic varieties as well, so no grafting is necessary.

Quote from: NewGen on July 30, 2020, 05:10:33 PM

OP,
Have you had any flowers or fruits with the black sapote?
My potted tree had 100+ fruits but all fell off. I' ve heard conflicting reports of black sapote needing, or not, a  2nd tree for pollination.
Thanks,

I have a grafted black sapote that flowers profusely but barely grows. It is a tough one to get vegetative growth on due to all the flowering. My understanding is that most trees are either female or male and you will need to graft the other gender on for cross pollination, or have another around. The one I have is from Papaya Tree and Alex's tree is large and produces heavily. It is probably 50 years old. He doesn't have another around for cross pollination, so one can infer that it isn't totally necessary for at least some cultivars.

I didn't know grafted black sapote grow very slowly. I just went and removed all 25+ flowers on my newly planted Bernecker black sapote. Hopefully this will stimulate some growth.

4' gopher baskets sound excessive. Don't worry about gopher baskets strangling root growth. Once I had to remove a capulin tree growing for 3 years in a 3' wide basket from 1/2" hardware cloth. I saw 2" diameter roots growing through the 1/2" mesh as if the mesh was not there.
If you still worry, you could use 3/4" hardware mesh. I got a roll of it once. It is much easier to work with, but much more expensive.
If your gophers tend to hop into the baskets, make sure the baskets extend 6" above the ground.

As Brad said, trapping is important. I also take care of new gopher arrivals as soon as I see a new mound. I probably tpap 6 - 12 gophers per year.

Hi Mark,

I am at 100 ft elevation and 2 miles from the ocean in Santa Barbara.
You can check my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKVwnQcxjXcCVtX0e621CLg/

What is your elevation and distance from the ocean?
Have you tried growing mango trees?

Vlad