ahh man, but I love loquats ... my co-worker has a seedling tree of fruiting age, best loquats I've eaten thus far.

I love them too.  But as I wander neighborhoods grazing from the trees there are just not any good ones to be found.

I just got my plants from Ethan and they are fabulous!  All in great condition and well established, I cannot recommend him highly enough (and he was able to hand deliver them to San Diego)!


Thanks Ethan!


Richard

Quote from: Guanabanus on April 23, 2012, 11:10:08 PM

I would expect to find this compound mainly in the seeds, twigs, and leaves, not in the pulp.  Medicinal uses of the Annonaceae are usually teas or extracts from the leaves or twigs.  The seeds tend to be poisonous.

I agree with Har. The concern was based on one small study on Caribbean island where large amounts of soursop were consumed on daily basis. The tests done on rats were based on synthesized annonacins not the real substance. I think this study was very faulty but did raise this concern over eating annonas. Even annona seeds are ok as long as they are not chewed and will go right through your body. There is a big problem though with processed soursop (guanabana) juices and other soursop products. Many factories are not very good at removing all the seeds. The seeds get crunched and end up in final product. I would just be very careful about eating processed products of soursop.

Oscar, if you are referring to the study by Champy et al., they used annonacins  purified from A. muricata root powder in their rat studies.  There was another study by Landolt et al. that used synthetic derivatives, but that was the point of their study.

But it is still true that while there are measurable levels of annonacins in the pericarp of most, if not all of the annonas, they are not a problem for the average person.  As Simon inferred above, all fruits, vegetables and plants have toxic substances in them, it is just that they are at very low levels.  In fact, you would be shocked to learn just how much methanol your body naturally produces every day.

In the  island of Guadeloupe studies that Oscar mentioned, not only did the affected persons eat large amounts of soursop, they also drank large amounts of tea made from the leaves and bark (where the annonacin concentrations are higher).  But we general fruit lovers are safe.

Simon,


Have you been talking to a particular one of the local nurserymen?


I heard this from a local source and like you was a bit worried about it.  However, after looking into it, I realized that even the fruits with higher levels of the annonicins (e.g. guanabana) really do not have enough to be of any real concern unless you eat A LOT of them.  The amounts found in the cherimoyas are very low, and unless you are eating literally dozens of them every day for your entire life. there should be little to worry about, at least for a normal healthy individual.  (BTW, I am trained as a natural products chemist and worked in the field of neurobiology for many years so I have a pretty good understanding of the scientific literature on the subject)


So as long as you do not decide to go on a cherimoya only diet for the rest of your life, I would not worry about it.


RIchard

If only I had some rootstock to graft on to... sigh

Richard

ok, we are one short of 8 but  I just ordered it for us. I had to send business check to get it. as soon as I receive it I will post here so you can paypal me.

Thanks

Don't know why I did not see this earlier, but if you are still one short (or have an extra roll). I'd take one.

Thanks,
Richard

I am in  no way an expert, but my original jaboticaba did exactly the same thing. I do not know anything about what  variety it was, but about 6 years after I planted it out in my yard it fruited for the first time. The fruits were on the very tips of the branches. The  next year they were mainly on the tips of the branches with a few farther back (it was maybe 12 fruit total).  The third year almost all the fruit was on the trunk (50-100 fruits) and it continued flowering only on the trunk after that.

Just my single observation, and my new plants are probably 6+ years from fruiting.
Richard

NZ
I am glad you brought this topic up again.


I have been using a similar product for the last year and while I do not have any comparative data for my fruit trees I can say that it does a great job with my vegetables.  Below are two photos of broccoli plants I put in my garden.  One group received a fungal spore inoculant at transplant and the other did not (I ran out). You can see that the group that was inoculated grew larger, but it also flowered faster than the untreated group. Note that in the treated group the plants grew so large that the crowding was forcing the leaves to grow up rather than out and that this photo was taken after most of there other plants in this block had been harvested.


Broccoli with the inoculant



Broccoli without the innoculant



A major caveat here is that the soil that these plants went into was AWFUL.  It is a scraped subsoil from the initial grading of a hillside that is a very sandy clay with no organic component at all.  On top of that, the beds were covered with black plastic for the last 5 years or so (by the previous owner) I added a few bags of organic material to each bed to help it out, but I would bet that they both were pretty sterile at the time.


So, would it help if you have a good, highly organic soil to start with?  Possibly not, as those microbes are probably already there.  But with the poor soil I have started with they really seem to help.


Richard

I don't think they need a whole lot of warmth.  My sister has a tree which is doing well, and she lives about a mile from San Francisco Bay north of Berkeley.  It almost never gets warm there.

John,

Thanks for the tip.  Since I have always seen them growing in the east county here in SD and never by the coast, I just assumed that they needed summer heat to ripen.  I will look closer into planting one.

Richard

Add me to the list of persimmon  fans!  I however much prefer the non-astringent types that you eat like an apple.  I just adore the crunchy, sugary sweet goodness of a tree ripe Fuyu or Nishimura. I keep thinking about putting a tree in, but I do not know how the do in my current climate (they did great great in eastern SD county but I do not think we get the warmth near the coast).  I could never develop the taste for the astringent varieties, I just can't get past the slimy, mucous  needed texture no matter how good the flavor is.

Richard

Hi all,
 About 5 weeks ago, I attempted to side veneer graft a piece of my Coconut Cream mango on to a Manila mango that I picked up at a local nursery.  I had never attempted to graft a mango before and had not done any grafting at all it about 10 years so I was not hoping for much.  Well, it appears that the graft is taking, and pushing new growth through the parafilm.  I'll call it beginner's luck.


Anyway, my question to those more experienced than I is when should I cut off the top of the root stock?  Or should I not remove it at all and allow it to be a two variety tree? 


Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.






Emerging growth on the scion



The whole plant



Emerging growth in the rootstock


Thanks,
Richard

I have used a similar product from Fungi Perfecti.  It works wonders on my vegetables, and while I think it helps the trees I do not have a direct comparison (one tree with vs one without).  I'll post a picture of my veggies tomorrow to demonstrate the difference.

Cheers,
Richard

I for one have been very happy with Mickey.  The plants I have purchased from him have all been first rate, and the overall cost has been the same as other nurseries in Florida that have shipped to me.   I would not hesitate to recommend him to anyone.


Richard