Hi Vitor,

Thank you very much for the seeds you sent me! Excellently packed and very quick, as always. 

Pm sent. I'm interested

If your tree is fruiting, I wohld first let the ffuit ripen and evaluate the fruit.  It may turn out to be worth keepinv.  The tree itself has a nice shape.

If the fruit quality is poor or not up to your liking, then top working the tree would be the next best alternative.

That is indeed a better suggestion. It is worth trying the fruit you have first, it may be good...

Heinrich, those are beautiful plants, and very big already after just one year of growth. Way bigger than my Uvaia's. Congratulations.
It's encouraging to see them growing that fast this far north in Europe. Keep us posted on how they are doing!

Nice find! I'm curious to see how many of the little guys will survive.
If the fruit is not very special, this could be a nice rootstock for sweet varieties 

The idea of eating quince raw is new to the French, yes. The quinces from Serbia and around the Black Sea are supposed to be edible raw, but there is no verdict yet on their taste if they are grown in this region. The two varieties I know of that some people are growing in France are Miagkoplodnaja Wolgogradskaja and Aromatnaya, with the first one reportedly much better than the last...

Hi Heinrich,

Welcome to the forum and beautiful plants and seedlings you have.

Your seedlings look great. I have had a good success rate with cuttings of my plants, but germinating seeds is a whole other story. They are so tiny and take around two months to germinate for me, which means they usually germinate in January, and they are very sensitive as small plants to damping off. I usually lose more than half of my germinated seedlings in the first 4 months after they germinate. Once they get to summer when it is a bit drier and warmer out, and they have grown the first 3 to 4 sets of leaves, they usually make it. You seem to have had good luck with the seedlings! Do you have any tips?

Where did you buy your large leaved Ugni? Was it sold as a named variety, or was it just sold as Ugni Molinae?

Congratulations on your nice harvest, Nelio. It looks like a painting with all the different colors.

I planted coffee in the north of Portugal 3 years ago - of the 'normal' variety you can buy in big garden centers here. I must have planted 20 to 30 one year old seedlings - none of them survived the first winter... But I am more northerly than Luis...

Tea did survive, but coffee didn't, so guess what I'll be drinking...

Haha, I know, you told me about that one, Luis.

But although I don't know any Uvaia trees in the north, it seems to me that Uvaia is a bit more cold resistant than Jaboticaba, but since I only have my own experience, I may be mistaken...

Very ineteresting find, Nelio!

It also reminds me the most of an Uvaia, and if you say it comes from the north of Portugal, Jaboticaba is also less likely to survive there than Uvaia, I guess.

Hi Gary
I see you discovered the famous Mirto liqueur. It is made from the berries in your pictures: common myrtle: Myrtus Communis - like nighthawk identified.
As far as I know there are no poisonous cultivars of this. The leaves and berries are used extensively in Mediterranean kitchen, much like bay leaf, or laurel. Wild game, like boar is usually cooked with the berries, the strong taste of the berries counter the 'gamey' flavors of boar meat.

Since the bush has been in use for millennia, there are a couple of different forms, that are all considered Myrtus Communis. There are large leaved and small leaved forms (Hebe, or Tarentino), the small leaved ones are hardier. Berry colors can go from deep purple to pink to whitish green. Usually the cultivars are just named after the region where they grow. Corsica and Sardinia, two islands in the mediterranean between France and Italy are most famous for the Mirto liqueur and tradition. The bushes grow wild and are seldom planted. Wild berries are harvested and made into jams, jellies and infused in alcohol to make liqueur.

So besides named cultivars that are described by their hardiness, leaf size and color of the berries, there are no special cultivars for use in kitchen or for liqueurs.

You can look up 'mirto liquore' on Youtube to turn that batch into Liquore di Mirto.
Good luck,

Solko

I'm looking forward to doing some Strawberry Guava selections, I really like the fruit and it grows easy enough here, even in my cooler climate.


I know a couple of you on this forum like the fruit as well, and I have also seen that there is quite some variety in shape, size, season and probably taste. If a couple of us send in some seeds of our best fruits, and let me know if they have room to grow out a couple of trees up to fruiting stage, than I'll repack all the seeds I get into a selection of two or three seeds of all the different sources and send that back to you to grow out.

It will take a few years, to grow out the trees, but who knows what we will find. I've seen fruit sizes vary a lot and heard very different taste reports on Strawberry Guava. So, if you are interested in finding some better strains or more variety in season and taste, or just for the fun of it, you are welcome to participate.

And if you don't want to grow out a bunch of trees yourself, but you do want to participate and try to get some better selections in a few years, than you can also just send in seeds. I'll send you seeds or scions of the best selections in a couple of years in return. I am in Europe, so scions for the USA will only be possible if one of you in the USA is willing to grow out the same collection of seeds and make a selection out of the seedlings over there.

At most it will probably take up the space of two or four big pots. One big pot to grow out the seeds for the first year or two. And if you are good at grafting, than that is basically all the space it will take, because after the second year, you can then graft the seedlings onto the two to four largest ones. I plan on growing out 40 seedlings myself and to graft them on four of my larger trees that are in pots here. They will have quite a good branch structure by that time and will be able to hold about 10 different varieties each. They will be able to grow large enough to at least give some fruit for tasting and evaluation.

Who is up for this?

I'm looking for any of the following traits:
good flavor, dwarf trees, precocious trees (fruiting from seed within 2 years), cold hardiness, quick ripening, large fruit size, fruit fly resistance, special colors, anything out of the ordinary, or just if you think your tree gives delicious fruit.


Send me a PM to get details for sending seeds back and forth and to discuss wether you just want to just send in seeds, or also want to grow out a selection of the different seeds I'll collect. I'll post updates of the process here and will send seeds or scions of any resulting plants to all who send in seeds.

Solko

They were tasty.

Shane, there are around 4 to 5 named varieties of Ugni in Europe, we talked about them is this thread:
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=8792.0

I am growing 4 of the named varieties now. 'Big Burning Pink' hasn't fruited yet, but it looks suspiciously like my nameless large leaved one, which I bought in France.

The taste of all Ugni's seems to be the same, but my big Ugni's seem to ripen up faster, sweeter and more uniformly, even though they get a lot less sun than the small leaved ones. A good berry of both bushes tastes the same, but the big leaved one has a very uniform crop of good big berries. And the small leaved one has  a lot of variation in size. The confusing thing about the Ugni's is that when ripening the berries color up red first and then LOSE their color when they are fully ripe and sweeten up. Or at least, that is what I found. So if you pick the red ones, they are often still very sharp and sour. You have to wait for them to lose a bit of color again and become like a colored apple yellow with red streaks. You can see what I mean in the last picture.

Some pictures:

Small leaved:


Large leaved:


The difference:


Grapebush, I hope you'll find your Luma tastes nice, otherwise I will gladly send you some cuttings.

Thanks, Don, are you growing Ugni's a s well?

Shane and Don, I can send you seeds of my big ones if you like. I have a couple of berries left on the plant