I jinxed myself.
I spoke too soon.
After a month or so I had to brag and less than an hour later there was a ground squirrel chomping on my tomatoes.
The Rat Zapper has been deployed and the watches have been set.
 

I've found that happens all too often, especially with squirrels.  My peach and pawpaw trees still have all their fruit, but as they're getting close to ripening it is always a race with the squirrels.  35 of the tree rats relocated in the last 2 months; at least they seem to like peanut butter better than unripe fruit.  Now that I've posted that my peach and pawpaw fruits are intact, squirrels will be swarming my yard-- I think they're starting to read the forum to see where the good pickings are!

   Kevin

Neat idea- I like the concept of using the natural contours of the land.  Plus, it would be undeniably cool to have a stream running through the greenhouse.

But wouldn't the stream / groundwater be awfully cold in the wintertime, keeping root zone temperatures near freezing?

   Kevin

Great plants! Would like to see a pic of your graft onto the lucs mexican forultiple rootstock. Did you use a different garcinia?

The multiple-rootstocks for Luc's Mexican Garcinia are just more Luc's Mexican Garcinia, though I have successfully grafted it onto G. intermedia as well.

I had a high low humidity and temperature gauge in there and it really helps alot for getting a picture of what's happening in there. A tiny mist maker and just an oscillating fan were enough for humidity to be 80%+ also I didn't realise it,was getting down to a chilly 15C when lights went off so I changed to 24/0 and covered the tent in blankets.(leaving myself cold and only with my duvet but as long as my plants are happy lol) It's amazing eliminating the low temperature and upping the average temp from 23C to 27C has made the difference I wouldn't have imagined, before the light was bleaching rollinia  now they can't get enough! Coffee does nothing outside in summer or pushes one new leafset a season, in the tent it's flushing nonstop! Funny how such small rises in humidity and temperature can make a world of difference. Never ending summer is now here8)
Get that setup right and you won't even wanna take the plants out come next summer!

You might try putting a large container of water in your tent, even under the plants-- the water's thermal mass will help stabilize temperature in your tent.  My plants grow better in my basement plant room with carefully-controlled conditions than they ever do outside-- I just don't have enough room to keep everything in there! 

I wonder if my 400watt hps and later adding my 600watt hps will be ok for all cycles. Cannabis growers are obsessed with mh veg hps flower but I don't notice any stretching my hps plants.

Cannabis growers are obsessed with MH for veg, and HPS for flower.  Cannabis is an annual plant that dies after flowering, so growers don't really care how healthy the plant is after it flowers.  If you're forced to choose from either red-deficient blue-heavy light (metal halide or most fluorescent lights), or a blue-deficient red-heavy light (high pressure sodium), it is true that the blue-heavy light clearly works better for vegetative growth, and the red-heavy light works better for flowering.  This doesn't mean that the plants don't want more blue light during flower, or more red light during vegetative growth-- just that if you're forced to choose from two spectrum-deficient options, that's the best choice.  It works even better (even for Cannabis) if the spectrum is balanced for the entire life of the plant.

In nature, the upper canopies of plants block most of the blue light, but the far-red light penetrates to lower leaves and other plants. Plants that want full sun have evolved to encourage rapid stem growth when exposed to a low blue-to-red light ratio-- this makes them increase internodal spacing to grow tall and try to "stretch through" whatever is shading them out. This is why plants grown under HPS lights get taller, with weak stalks-- HPS light has a lot more far-red light than red light or blue, so plants grown under HPS think they are being shaded by plants above them.

Most tropical fruit plants don't die after they flower, so getting a more-balanced spectrum and growing with it all the time is even more beneficial.  If you're considering putting a 400W and a 600W in your tent, a 400W MH and a 600W HPS would provide a good balance, and you'll see better growth and flowering/fruiting than using either light alone.  Of course, if you really want the best lighting I'd recommend a good-quality LED (disclaimer: I work for Black Dog LED, but I wouldn't if I didn't think they were the best artificial lights you can get!).  Ceramic Metal Halide (CMH) is just as cheap as MH or HPS (often even cheaper), and provides a well-balanced spectrum-- I used to grow under CMH before I switched to all LED, and I had better  luck with tropical fruits under the CMH than I did under MH, HPS or even a combo of the two.  Unfortunately, CMH bulbs usually only go up to 400W, and they still put out way too much infrared light which only heats up the leaves, just like MH and HPS.

The plants in your picture look pretty good, but if you had the same plants grown under sunlight, MH or LED, you'd see how much they really are stretching under the HPS.  Minimizing the day/night temperature swings helps keep internode distances shorter as well, and it sounds like you're doing this already-- adding a large water reservoir in the tent may help even more.

   Kevin

Hey Kevin,

Are you thinking about topping your a Mangosteen soon since you plan on keeping it potted? I wonder if topping it now will help with earlier fruiting. You also want to keep your tree shorter so won't pruning it now prevent you from having to top it later when it has already spent much energy on growth higher up?
Simon

Hello Simon,

Yes, I will be pinching out the central leader on the very next growth spurt; it has already put on 2 more flushes since the last update in this thread:

http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=10424.msg133655

Encouragingly, the plant has already started branching out from dormant buds lower on the trunk even before I've done any pruning.

    Kevin

In my experience here in Colorado, extreme temperature changes don't bother pawpaw seedlings.  I've had them go from 0.2C to 26C in one day outside, no problems.  I would suggest keeping the pots from freezing.

I don't think height has anything to do with when they want full sun; I have plants 2 feet tall in full sun that are doing great.  I think just the age matters- they seem to despise full sun for the first 2 years.  They will tell you if you give them too much light-- their leaves will burn rather quickly and fall off, but more will grow back if the plant was healthy and you move it to a shady spot.

When I've grafted onto 1-year-old seedlings, the scions (regardless of the age of the tree it came from) wanted shade until the rootstock was more than 2 years old.  On the other hand, when I've grafted 1-year-old seedling tops onto my mature tree, they can handle full sun immediately.  I think as long as the rootstock is more than 2 years old they can handle (and seem to prefer) full sun.

   Kevin

Quote from: FloridaGreenMan on June 23, 2014, 12:59:14 PM

Next question, are they any good?  I have purchased dollar store priced Mexican Jaks here (99cts/lb) and they were dreadful. Totally inedible.

I think this question would be truly hard for people to answer who have no availabiliy to some of the better grown varieties as they don't have access to anything but what is available in their local markets.

There's certainly variation in what's available here; many are certainly not good.  The good ones are certainly very, very good-- not excellent, I've had better in Hawaii-- but still very good.

I got the impression from the pepper vine description that it is probably a Piper species (where black pepper comes from) and not a Capsicum species as you all seem to think...  I know birds are immune to the effects of Capsicum compounds, but I'm guessing they aren't immune to compounds from Piper species?

   Kevin

P.S.  You may want to find an early-ripening pawpaw variety to ensure the fruit ripens for you before fall freezes come-- you (like me) are on the colder end of pawpaw's range and a late-ripening variety may not be the best choice.  I don't know if Wabash is considered early or late variety, but there are many (supposedly) good early-ripening varieties available such as "NC-1", "Pennsylvania Golden" and "Allegheny".

   Kevin

You have already done what I was thinking about doing to my SK.  Do you mind me asking - what grafting method you did to add Kari to an existing SK ?  Did you cut off one branch and cleft grafted on it ?  Veneer grafted ?  Side branch or top branch ?  Any particular time of the year ?

I've done successful cleft, veneer and bud grafts on carambolas, both replacing the central leader and on side branches (or adding new side branches).  I'm doing it all inside so time of year is irrelevant for me; I don't know if there is a time of year that would work better or not.

My grafting success rate is 0 out of about dozen.  I read many people say it is very easy, watched countless videos, but I seem to have missed something.  I used a sharp knife, tight fit, parafilm on avocado, mango, and sapodilla with no success...

0 out of 12 isn't bad-- I think I only got 2 or 3 takes out of the first hundred grafts I tried.  Grafting takes practice to perfect.  Watching videos is good, but in my experience nothing helped more than getting together with experienced grafter(s) to have them show me in person-- and point out little things I was perhaps doing wrong.  A few years ago I planted several hundred jackfruit seeds and used them all for grafting practice, and my grafting success rates went from ~10% to ~80%.  Don't give up!

   Kevin

Interesting. Sounds like I can keep it in a 15-gallon pot indefinitely. Can you post photos of your 5-gallon tree?

Aisles in my grow room are 18" wide so it is hard to get far enough away from the plant to take a picture of all of it!

Here's the pot it's in:


Some of the last batch of fruit:


It's perhaps easier to get a good idea of what it looks like by watching the video tour of my plant room-- the carambola features starting at 40 seconds in.

CoPlantNut's Black Dog LED-lit ultra-tropical setup

   Kevin

Has anyone tried using these?  I'm curious if they will hold up for one to two years in a tropical climate, and then really degrade decently after planting.  I need something that will last for at least 9 months, and won't disintegrate in a rainy season, nor bond with the clay beneath it.  Any experience?

http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/product/root-pouch-grey-fabric-pot-3-4-year/biodegradable-pots

For "not bonding with the clay beneath it" I can tell you from experience here (with heavy clay outside) that a plant in a fabric pot set on the clay will become attached to the ground rather quickly, as roots grow through the pot into the clay.  This is still a problem with plastic pots, though not as bad.

The fabric pots seem to work best if (A) you're happy letting the plant root into the ground beneath it, or (B) keeping them elevated off the ground slightly to allow air to circulate underneath the bottom of the pot.  (B) will require more frequent watering, but will air-prune all of the roots for you.

As far as pots that degrade on their own, I would be skeptical.  They say the pots have cotton fibers which would bio-degrade over time, but the plastic fibers will only photo-degrade.  I'd still want to remove the pot before planting or re-potting.

On a related note, the best way I've found to remove a plant from a fabric pot is to roll the fabric pot inside-out off of the rootball.  It is a bit of a pain, but leaves an intact rootball, and you wouldn't need to worry about the pot degrading over time.

   Kevin

Thanks for the info Kevin, I love your mangosteen grow room BTW I'm from out there (my brother lives in Niwot) and I've never seen crazier weather than storm fronts rolling off the rockies or plains t-storms.

Let me know if you're out visiting your brother-- I'm half a mile from Niwot!

Is the weight and cost the only reason for the bark? I read somewhere else that pure turface is a little too water retentive for most trees, maybe not the tropicals. And I'm fine with picking out the dead roots and pruning, the advantages of a mix that doesn't break down seem to outweigh the issues caused by bark, at least to me. That's what the pure hydro guys do. I recently made 400 gallons of 5-1-1 for my potted trees and veggies and the consistency of the bark is all over the place, even after screening. And it seems there's a bell curve of the mix's performance, with the second year being the best for the plants (when the bark is a little composted) and then goes downhill after that.

Yes, I should clarify that weight and cost are the only reason for me, with my conditions to use bark.  Bark has other benefits such as helping to maintain a low pH, which would be beneficial in many situations but since I adjust the pH of my water every time, I don't need it for the pH-lowering properties.

I'm also lucky to have a local source of consistently-high-quality pine bark fines-- but I've seen other offerings and agree that quality can vary significantly.

The plants I have in pure Turface are "pure hydro"; really the only thing that disqualifies my other plants is the bark in the mix, but everything gets the same watering and conditions.  I'm a big fan of doing side-by-side tests and so far I can't see any real difference between the plants in 50/50 bark and Turface plants and those in 100% Turface, even after 7 years-- but the big qualifier is always "in my conditions".

As far as Turface possibly being a little too water-retentive, I should point out that I have some cacti planted in pure Turface and as long as watering is managed appropriately, it seems to work well.  Being indoors, I get to manage when things are watered and it isn't an issue.  For potted plants outside, 100% Turface may be a little too water-retentive if you get a week of rain.  I also carefully manage the pot size for my plants; in a large pot (inadequately filled with roots), Turface, bark, peat, coco would all be "too water-retentive".  Most people on this forum seem to encourage putting plants in large pots, but I always try to get away with the smallest pot I possibly can for any plant, and only give them larger pots if they require watering too frequently.  Again-- this works in my conditions, but my conditions are also very different than most people on the forum as I'm not growing outdoors.

Here's an image from Growstones regarding water/air retention. Not sure where bark falls in, but I think it's between perlite and peat. Where would turface be?

Bark's water retention changes dramatically as the bark ages-- it holds more water with time.  This could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your conditions.  I'd bet Turface MVP is about equal in air/water retention.  It should be pointed out that there are different sizes of Turface as well though-- the Turface GameSaver is almost like sand and has very high water retention more like rockwool.

I have a little Ensete ventricosum banana that's in a pot, submerged in the pond, filled with Turface MVP. It's been growing fine for 2 years. The wind knocked out over several times, I had to cut off the damaged stalks. The little guy grew back like a champ. No nutrients added. Just the pond water, and whatever the fish and frogs secreted into the water. How long does Turface hold water, compared to a typical potting soil mix?

I use 100% Turface for most of my pond plants as well-- you're basically growing in an aquaponic situation there; the plant gets all the nutrients it needs from the water.  (The exception is water lilies- I have those planted in heavy clay so I can fertilize them without it seeping immediately into the water.)

Turface holds water almost as well as pine bark fines; it won't hold water as much as a peat-based mix but it certainly still works well.  Turface is used in professional sports fields to grow grass, as it offers perfect drainage (no puddles on the field), excellent water and nutrient retention, and extreme resistance to compaction.  The only reason I'm not using 100% Turface for all of my potted plants is the added weight and expense.