My experience with E Dysenterica is that it is so hard to germinate and keep alive that it is hard to tell what kills it when it is young; city water, the sun, soil ph or other preferences like temperature and humidity - and it doesn't like small pots. As a seedling it is, like many Myrtaceae, very slow growing. Full trees seem to get quite large and obviously thrive in full sun. I've only seen large trees as singular trees - it doesn't show wether that tree grew up as a seedling in the shade of other bushes and then outgrew them.
As to the claim that it acts as a laxative, I have no firsthand experience eating the fruit, but it has the shortest possible shelf life - you have to eat it straight of the tree or it starts to ferment. That can probably account for it's nickname. There are a lot of better alternatives out there in order to wind up drunk on the toilet 

For E pyriformis I can confirm that there are varieties that are extremely slow growing - when young - and others that grow pretty fast, from barely 10 cm in the first year to around 60 cm.

Great review!
I'm really looking forward to grow this one. They are hard to come by in Europe and seed germination is not very predictable.

That looks great! And a beautiful Uvaia!

Thank you for clarifying that, Millet, that explains a lot of what is happening in my greenhouse this winter...

Marcos, thanks for the background information. It seems indeed that there are sweet and acid types of Uvaia, as well as the hybrids and the velvety types.... as you said, all very confusing. That is why I wanted to find out wether there are a lot of different flavors within all the Uvaia’s.


And Joe,
yes, the Eugenia genus is very mysterious, but that is also part of the fun of collecting them.
Do you think you can post some pictures of your Ubajai, so we can compare the leaf type.
I found the thread where I saw an Uvaia with the same type of leaves:
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=1963.0
It is the last picture in Adams post. He also says that his plant is very different from Ubajai, if you examine them next to each other. He said the fruit as good.
If you ever get any seeds of your plant, I would be interested!

That looks delicious!

Do you find a lot of variability in the taste, size and sweetness of all your Uvaia’s? I know that you have trees from a lot of different sources and I was wondering how variable the different fruits and flavors are.

Hi Mikkel,

Ugni Molinae ripens around October here, if you remind me next October, I can send you some seeds.

Solko

Hi Carlos,

Your seeds arrived today, they look good and I will get them planted as soon as possible. Thank you very much!
Solko

I’m with you on the search for better tasting varieties. I grow a couple of young trees here, and it is quite hard to find seeds from superior quality. I know the university of Montevideo in Uruguay has a program to look for better varieties, but even they are skeptical and haven’t really found one yet. Miguel’s report on his exceptional seedling is very hopeful though, and also the fact that genetically the Ubajai is close to Uvaia, so they may cross sometimes. If you ever find seeds of a good variety, i’m very interested! My young trees are only two years ol, but very beautiful and very easy to grow. They can take a lot of cold, drought and neglect and still look healthy and green.
Good luck!

Hi Caesar,

I think you are doing everything right, step by step. I got interested in permaculture and fruit breeding both out of curiosity and idealism, but I do have another education, job and passion which is my ‘first love’.
On the other hand I always fantasized about my ‘plant hobby’ to someday be able to generate some money or income, but after eight years of spending a lot of time and thoughts on it I realize that that is very hard to do ‘on the side’ . I am afraid there is not a lot of ‘passive income’ to generate from farm work and fruit breeding is by now an equally complex art, so adjusted to market demands it has become not only an enormous long shot, but in order to develop new varieties into a licensed or patented product that generates money ‘passively’ you have to work full time at it. So the ‘passive’ part is very relative.

Nonetheless some permaculture farms that are well planned and thought through have flourished and taken off also commercially. These are truly admirable enterprises and have given a better idea on how to make such a thing work. All of them take it as seriously hard work and research their context and market extensively, start small and scale things up later.
You might want to check out the videos of this guy:
https://youtu.be/p__7st7Q6ic

Good luck!

Ahh, I see now. I missed the link underneath. I have a couple of two and three year old Eugenia's, but I haven't been able to grow them 'fast' in a greenhouse, with adequate heat and moisture. I grew them outside in summer in our Northern European climate but from around this time of the year they come inside and basically stop growing.
So I haven't had any surprises of super early flowering plants yet... but still keeping my fingers crossed for next year.

Wow, Heinrich, that is amazing.
I cannot tell if it is an Uvaia, but as far as I can see it could very well be. I have a couple of Pitanga and one Uvaia seedling that have the same triple-leaf symmetry instead of opposite leafs. But I have never seen such a small seedling flower, you must be doing something right!