The Tropical Fruit Forum

Quote from: Victoria Ave on February 28, 2023, 03:11:38 PM

Temps inside were getting into the 90s

Seed mold: someone suggested to soak the seeds in diluted bleach solution first.
Socal has been so cold, so how did you get 90 in the green house? With heater?

The day I discovered the damage it was 62° out but was 86° in the sealed up greenhouse. The day before it had reached 68° so I assumed it went over 90°. The grafted tree got burnt, and one 3’ sweet tart seedling, and when I lifted that pot it was dry dry. I assume it was that heat and sun intensity and not cold because uncovered mango trees around my yard are not showing the same damage. Luckily the big grafted mango tree is somewhat shading the other mango and avocado seedlings and they didn’t seem affected. Though still thirsty

Has anyone else had issues with seeds molding? Been cleaning the seeds thoroughly and the media to sprout in and that has helped but still getting some black mold on the seeds. I’m germinating a bunch of NDM seeds right now and it’s looking pretty good a few weeks in but I have a few getting significantly moldy.

I hadn’t opened up my greenhouse and checked for over a week. I did before storms last week and saw my big beauty cocktail tree got roasted. Temps inside were getting into the 90s and I hadn’t been running irrigation because all the rain and I’m guessing soil had dried out because it was protected. Irrigated and I’m really hoping she bounces back

Controlled burns and fire management was actually something that went astray in Southern California. In other places in the US it was a more useful tool, but the chaparral that makes up the majority of plant material down here has evolved around fires at intervals of about 100 years. When prescribed burns came through they were done much more regularly, plus whatever wild fires happened. This led to invasive species (grasses and mustards in particular) which grow much quicker than chaparral taking over large swaths of the landscape. These less hardy plants die out and crisp up once summer comes into full effect, leading us into a cycle of fire.

The drought, unfortunately, is not over after one year of rain. Drought is an overall climate condition, and we experiencing a weather event. Even with all this rain 60% of California is in drought. The reservoirs will only hold so much, lake mead is still falling, and our depleted aquifers are not getting recharged sufficiently.

Unfortunately wishing and hoping isn’t going to help us much, management and action may. I hope all of us look at managing our water for our thirsty trees efficiently and work towards reducing our footprints. I know lots of people disagree/ disbelieve with environmental policy and confuse it with political issues, we all know someone who has left CA citing the government and prices. Honestly the only thing I see having me leave CA is the prolonged climate issues and water

Work a couple seeds into your luggage

Perhaps I’ve never had a good one, but I’ve never had one that I thought was anything special. Subsistence seems a good description. I don’t particularly like the arborist unedo as a landscape tree, but the arbutus ‘marina’ is a killer specimen! But I don’t think the fruit are worth eating.

My school! I used to check out the nursery and help out in my plant science classes and farm stuff. The dragon fruit selection is pretty good and they do a huge pepper sale every year where they have tons of different varieties for sale. Decent plumerias too, and got a good deal on aloe tree. It’s fun to check out if you also wander around the campus and know where to look for cool landscape species, but not a ton of tropical fruit (some coffee, pineapple guava and dragon fruit, banana, Barbados cherry, and mango seedlings)

Thanks for sharing your creative idea, Sapote!

I also have newly germinated mango seeds in conventional pots currently,
would you recommend to plant these in the ground now (late October)
or later in Spring be better for our SoCal climate?

In my personal experience small trees planted in fall have a higher chance of failure. With our cold weather and moist soils over the winter the lil guys are more prone to developing issues with wet feet.

I would put them in the ground in spring and let them develop roots over summer and fall to better handle less than idle conditions.

Search Craigslist and Facebook market place. I have seen those available!

I would like to get 4 if still available! Thanks

Johnny,

Good the hear about the promise of Val-Carrie. I have a cocktail tree with Valencia pride, Carrie and sweet tart. Was thinking about putting Val-Carrie on because it would be fun to have a side by side comparison of the parents and their offspring.

I am surprised by how vigorous the Carrie scion is growing. It was dominating the tree (was grafted this year and over taking grafts from last year) so I bent the branch down for a few weeks using string and an anchor. It has now opened up the center and brought everything a bit more level canopy. Excited to see how these cocktail trees perform!

Seanny, thanks for posting the photo and mentioning your method to do the air layer. I was thinking of doing something similar since my dad who was a bonsai instructor always used pots on the air layer branch for his bonsai. Good to hear it works, my previous years air layers (10) all had roots but after I moved them into small pots, 70% died in one year.

This year I will do the normal air layer, then once i see roots, I will try your pot method with soil, it sounds like a good idea. I have some large air layers going now (2-3" diameter, 6-8ft tall), so I will make sure to try your method. I plan to air layer maybe 20 branches so I can get as much of the branches off before I cut the tree down.

Here's my large Brester lychee tree photo from 2021.












Thanks.

What an absolute monster of a tree, I’ll keep an eye out if you sell any of those air layers

Consider a pecan tree spaced up to 20’ from your house on the south side. They grow into stately shad trees, provide delicious nuts, and are deciduous so in the winter they allow sun to warm your buns. Idk if you can grow persimmons there, but same attributes but in a smaller tree closer to the house

Is grafting lychee not common practice?