The Tropical Fruit Forum

Seems like a lichen to me.

That's a whip and tongue graft but without the tongue, it's the most common graft for cherimoyas in Spanish nurseries, I tried once on mango and it took. Some people say it's less traumatic for the tree than the cleft graft. Truth is that I do both every year on stone fruit, figs, Annona or mulberries and in the mid term I never noticed a difference. They both heal fine for me and hold well in my windy area.

Thanks once again for the info, Kaz. I'm pretty sure that being that methodical and growing the varieties under the same conditions is a matter of time to clarify if all these cvs are at least close enough that we can't tell one from another without molecular analysis. For us who grow them in the yard is more than enough. Here in Europe mulberries trade is also becoming messy regarding names, there are some varieties circulating like Shelli 150 or Black Pakistan that aren't the real deal, for example.

Jose

Jose,

Nice fruit you have on such an early graft. I would let to many fruits hang or your graft may not grow as fast. I like to leave just a few fruits when my new grafts have fruits before 1 year, just to make sure it is the correct variety. I also got some Lavender mulberry scions a month ago and grafted many on my trees. The pictures I saw of the fruit was more lavender/purple color. I'm sure yours will have more color next year when your grafted branches are larger. I have a purple/white colored fruit from Italay called Sangue e Latte and it did the same thing as yours. The first fruits wasn't as nice looking and tasting as the second year fruits.

Thanks Kaz for your answer, so informative. That Sangue e Latte certainly looks similar to Sweet Lavende and mine, specially in the first and second pics. Mine so far has not shown those dark tones when fully ripened, although in the first year get conclusions about phenotype might be risky as you point. My grafts have no problems of vigor, on the contrary, I had to pinch the apical grow from them a few weeks ago to make them branch a little. The roostock is a >30 years old M. alba tree that gets water and nutrients from several other trees in my yard and from the yard of my neighbor so it grows like crazy. I have to keep in check every few days all the suckers from the original variety (worthless in the flavor aspect) and even nigra cvs are going well over 2 meters (7 feet) in their first season. The tree was 8-10 meter high when I decided to get some control of it and let some room and light for other fruit trees so it pushes really hard to get back to its original size.

I wanted to ask your opinion about Spice Park’s variety of Himalayan mulberry describe by Craig Hepworth here https://floridafruitgeek.com/2021/06/30/growing-the-fruit-and-spice-parks-variety-of-himalayan-mulberry-in-north-florida/. A member from Florida has already commented on the other variety that he recommends, Skinner, and confirms what Craig already explains on his blog, that Skinner is exceptional, but this other one that I link above is the GOAT for him and I would like to know if someone has tried it and shares his opinion about the exceptionality of this cv.

Cheers,

Jose

Very interesting experiences. I use bags for grafting, but so far I only did it for grafting pitayas (a plastic bag plus a paper bag if in direct sunlight). Now I'll give it a try on mangoes, avocados and anonas too.

Maybe another thing worth considering is the type of grafting depending on the season (or weather), I don't know of people switching from scion to bud grafting in subtropical trees, but on Prunus spp it's common to switch whip & tongue/cleft in winter for chip grafting when trees start to push and for other bud grafting types once they are already actively growing. At least here in Spain. It wouldn't be surprising if mangoes/avocados/anonas also showed better rates depending on the method and the season. I wonder if anyone has already done or found some trails on this matter.

Parts of it had me laughing

This was something too...  https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=2318.0

It hurts to watch those pics  I have strong winds in my area too, what I do when the branches carry a lot of fruit is to use fork-shaped thick sticks to hold them up. Well placed and fastened, they are very efficient in preventing breakage.

A couple of pictures of a fruit over 600 gr from my seedling which I call Pal #3, first year of production (it comes from a seed of a Palora sowed in the spring of 2019). The plant is still young and barely branched, just 3 stems but the main one is about 3 meters long (this variety grows fast on its own roots). It's starting now to push new growth so I expect to get this size in the fruit again, maybe even bigger with proper thinning. It gave me 3 fruits this year (ripening took 7 months here).

I also have the original Palora from a couple of grafts I did from the fruit I bought in the supermarket and the original one is also growing really fast here (on undatus roostock in this case). We'll see how Pal 3 performs compared to Palora this year. I gonna plant also cuttings of both (and of another seedling, a sister of Pal 3) side by side to keep comparing.   

Jose',
Probably cold-soil-induced deficiencies, of Calcium, Sulfur, Zinc, Iron, etc.  Red spots may be from thrips or from micro-mites.

Thank you very much, Har. Indeed, since the beginning of March we have been experiencing unusually cool and quite rainy weather. Thanks for your answer.

Jose

I'm going to bump this thread up because I think the information that Alex shares in this video is very interesting and I couldn't find it in the forum: Guava is actually Sein Ta Lone from Myanmar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEH8NUi6P5I

Thanks, JP. Yes, according to TAF is a very late season cv.

As for ripening, California has a similar climate to Andalusia but I'm not sure to what extent they are really equivalent, here the Colombian megalanthus start to change color in April, and they are harvested through May until the end of June easily, as least in my location.

Thanks Simon, I have ST and Venus but didn't have the chance to taste them yet.