Hi guys. I have tons of flowers from different types of dragon fruit. Nothing has set yet and I am finding these worms in many of my spent flowers and dying fruit. Does anyone know what these are? I have done a bit of research and nothing comes up. I am hoping it is just from the rains recently but I don't think it is. I had a couple fruit set last year without hand pollinating but the vines were pretty young. This year I have tons of flowers but major bug issues. HELP! If you click on the pic it will play the video. You can see the little white larvae with red heads.
IMG_1368.MOV by Joshua Starry, on Flickr

Interesting. I am going to plant out 3 seeds around my Mauritius right now and see if they sprout up. Does anyone know if the Hak Ip chicken tongue seeds will sprout since I always hear them called "aborted". Will the Mauritius seedlings graft onto Hak Ip?

I have have done a few different cover crops but the last one was sunn hemp. I planted out heirloom tomatoes in ground not knowing that is a big no no here because of nematodes and when I just ripped them up there wasn't any nematode damage that I could spot. That didn't stop the rest of the florida creatures from destroying them but I didn't really show them any TLC either. I hope this isn't too off topic but we are still talking about soil microbiology. The next thing I am hoping to do is get some beneficial nematodes to spray out. I am smashing root weevils every day by hand and they are supposed to help eat the larvae. I blows my mind how expensive biochar is but I am sure there are plenty of start ups going on right now and the price will come down. I make it when I can but I have very limited room to dry my feed stock and then I have to haul my barrels and everything to a friends house to burn and it is still kind of sketchy because he is still in a average sized neighborhood. So far I have used shredded cardboard, straw, mulch, and the round horse apple parts of the manure. I test different feed stocks with my mini kiln I built out of coffee tins. Biochar and aerated compost teas seem to go hand in hand. What are some good fungal foods everyone has used in their brews. I have some old grains in the pantry I was going to grind up. I was hoping those might work.

oooops...message boards > vernmented
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jwtYhS2Qcs&list=PL4705413D160B2343

I'm off to help set up. Hopefully a few of you come out and add to your tree hoard.  Come say hi if you see me. I will be the skinny guy in a white long sleeve and one of the few people there with big stretched earrings and long hair tied up. It is always fun to meet local growers.

One of my fruit clubs are having their annual tree sale and it is a biggie. There are about 20 vendors and it is indoors. The convention center is Palmetto just north of Bradenton, not too far from I-75. I'll be running around all day so come say hi to Vernmented aka Josh and buy some of those rare trees you have been after.



https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bradenton+Area+Convention+Center/@27.514989,-82.56144,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x88c33d6077d14501:0x87c48ea1000c7d3f

I have read and my current experience is that the vines need to be around a year old or more. Mine flowered the first year and I did get a couple fruit to set but now my Passiflora edulis has its first heavy fruit set. Hopefully I can get my quadrangularis to hold some fruit this year.

I don't know what this is BUT I WANT IT! NEED IT!!!!

I think most passion fruit need to be mature to hold fruit. It seems to be true with my vines. I am getting my first heavy crop of Passiflora edulis "Frederick" after planting it out for over a year so the flower drop probably isn't your fault. I only had a few fruit set before. I go really heavy on the mulch and try to keep it consistently moist. They are also somewhat heavy feeders and I have read they like a lot of iron. Those pots look a little dry and I would think it would be hard to keep a pot that size moist enough to keep them happy. I haven't grown passion vine from seed yet so no experience there. I have also seen and established yellow passion fruit thriving on neglect running up huge oak or pine dropping their fruit off when they are ripe but we get quite a bit of rain here in FL. Good luck!

My entire yard is crammed high density but everything is super young so it could backfire on me. I'll take some pics later. I  love what these people have done.
http://www.rarefruit-sa.org.au/Espalier/Trees/Trees.htm

 

Vernmented Orchards "Home of the Deformed Lizards"

Hey guys, should I be worried? I got a soil test but I don't think they tested for radioactive waste. Maybe I should have gone the chemical route instead of all this weed pulling and cover cropping.

@darkcoolboo - Here ya go! Don't say I didn't warn you. Pretty soon you will be planting the lowest chill apples and surrounding them with ice blocks. LOL
http://www.mediafire.com/view/swujm3xodlx9cgj/2012_Producing_Consistent_High_Quality_Fruit_in_Japan.pdf
http://www.mediafire.com/view/6ikqa9b0uxoz4el/Breakoutyonemoto.pdf
http://www.mediafire.com/view/eec74at7pr3rvbz/PruningYonemoto.pdf
Cowpeas and sunnhemp both worked really well here. I bought the seeds and inoculum from groworganic.com. The sunnhemp got HUGE! I think it choked out a lot of the bad nematodes I had in my Florida sand. My yard was low to moderate chemically treated grass before I started planting out. Tons of grubs. I am growing heirloom tomatoes in ground now and they are growing and fruiting. The bugs are the biggest problem but I was told that heirlooms wont grow here because of nematodes. I also sprayed beneficial nematodes a while back and use substantial mulch. I'm guessing Arizona "soil" is similar to Florida where I am at. Down south and east of here is a totally different story. I am working on making as much biochar as possible to boost my cation exchange capacity. I have some bocking 14 comfrey I ordered from ebay in a few spots around the yard. Ideally I would have it line my property to capture nutrients before it washes out but I haven't been that ballsy. It grows great here. I normally prune back my moringa at least a few times a year.

@Oscar - That lava sand is magical stuff! I ordered a few bags a while back to experiment with but it is not worth it for the postage. I can't find any locally but if I ever have a decent chunk of change to work with I will buy a rock crushing machine and make my own to use and sell. As I am sure you are well aware of it has that similar biochar effect being so porous plus the paramagnetism! There isn't much life that the sand here adds. I could imagine that mulch and biomass is at a premium out there. Something like this would be super helpful for the home scale so I can avoid tennis elbow from pruning all this mulch. hahaha.
http://www.amazon.com/LawnMaster-FD1501-Electric-Chipper-Shredder/dp/B004352KE2
If something happened to me this place would be engulfed in no time. Most of the support species will be removed eventually. I can always replant seeds. They are just there to aerate, cycle biomass and nutrients, and interact with the microbiome, although I am dying to eat some ice cream bean. I have a larger one of those with enough space to fruit hopefully.

@Peter - I will definitely keep an eye out around here. It is a beautiful tree.