The Tropical Fruit Forum

I grow mangosteen commercially and we occasionally dehydrate mangosteen pulp with the seeds and sell it as well as eating it ourselves.  We’ve always enjoyed it and never suffered for it.
Peter

Where Wani grows in SE Asia the temps are going to be probably from a low of 70 to a high of less than 90.  I have it growing here in CR and it looks pretty good.  I realize you have different conditions but it is important to avoid drastic temperature changes.
Peter

Does your potting medium not have any clay?
Seems to me that where these trees grow naturally there’s plenty of clay in the soil.
Peter

Coconut cream, you could if you had the scions but he plainly says that he has no access to any!!?

Tropo, that is very bad luck.  I would plant more pululan seedlings, pululan is worth it!
Plant at least 5.  With two only you have a 50% chance of failure.  If you don’t have the space then just plant them closer, see how it goes.
Peter

Has the mold actually passed to a plant and caused a problem?
The biomass is supposed to be broken down by fungi and bacteria’s.
Peter

There was a small agricultural ministry project to search for criollo cacao trees in CR about a year before the pandemic.  I was contacted by a participant and given a grafted tree.  I was told that two trees had been identified and that there were 35 grafts and I got one.  Six months later the guy checked on me and all good.  The pandemic came and the ministry was re structured so I have no idea what happened to those guys.
The tree is not a fast grower but has produced.  The first few pods had white seeds only, completely white.  This is pretty good as there are many other cacao trees around my farm and neighboring farms.  I originally bought an abandoned cacao farm. 

I grow what we call sapote Colombiano in Costa Rica.  Some are pretty good, others not so.  I do consultations and planting design around CR and I’d say that chupa chupa does not like dry.  In good, wet conditions it is a fast grower but when it starts to get dry it’s the first tree in the grove to start looking sad.  So I would be cautious about California.
Peter

From fallen trees and prunings we mulch with small sticks and leaves as well as large branch pieces. Mid size sticks are cut and stacked like cordwood to dry. We fill our barrel and produce the char. Depending on wood density it might take 2 hours to produce the 10kg or so that we get per batch.
Ideally we soak EM into the char and then apply it. But we also simply apply topically and spray microorganisms every two weeks on our char and mulch mix under the trees.
Peter

We make char in a T-LUD adapted steel drum. The char is produced at about 850c which burns off the volatiles.
By using this method no smoke is produced and the resulting char is much more porous.
Peter

The fruits are accessible since the salak palms stay low. I doubt an alligator could penetrate a dense, grown together clump/hedge of salak.
I don’t know how much heat you are talking about. It gets to 90 here and they’re unaffected.
Peter

Where are you in CR?
I have some small ones in my nursery.  If you are close to Zill’s then I would look for more seedlings there.
Here in Puerto Viejo we have limited commercial production of cherapu.
Peter

I have a large phalsa bush on my farm in Costa Rica. It gets pretty wet where it is.  We don’t use NPK but do apply mulch and lacto bacillus micros.  Seems to do fine.
Peter

Thinking about it, they come up as volunteers all over the place wherever they’re eaten. I don’t know if that helps but I never bury these kinds of seeds. I simply push them slightly into the medium and keep them moist.
Suerte!