Finally a giant Megalanthus

[Tropical Bay Area]

All these people with giant yellows, meanwhile me with a small 5 inch yellow store bought seedling...

[vall]

I need to graft Palora onto my Colombian yellow.  The fruit finally ripened in January, two months after turning yellow, but they are tiny. Two spoonfuls of pulp.

[spaugh]

yeah I am removing the columbian yellow and using the peru plant.  Im going to graft a bunch of peruvian cuttings onto some other rootstocks because these meglanthus seem to have weak roots.  they always look thirsty even when well watered.  ill make a bunch of them and save you one Val. 

[Draak]

All these people with giant yellows, meanwhile me with a small 5 inch yellow store bought seedling...

Your seedling fruits are 5 inches long? That's pretty awesome!

[Tropical Bay Area]

All these people with giant yellows, meanwhile me with a small 5 inch yellow store bought seedling...

Your seedling fruits are 5 inches long? That's pretty awesome!

Should’ve clarified it... the seedling is 5 inches long....
I keep saying things and then it sound better than it seems

[echinopora]

I’m getting a summer crop this year, but the size is down and I imagine fruiting twice will make the main crop smaller. The vine is just forming buds for the winter crop now. If I had been on my game I should have tried to hybridise giant yellow with Aztec gem or sugar dragon.

[FV Fruit Freak]

Nate, I just wait until they turn 80-100% yellow. I use a brush to remove the spines before cutting it off the vine. Nice looking fruit Nate!

Simon

Thanks Simon! I harvested the fruit last night, I was hoping the recent heat would pump a little extra sugar into it. I got a brix of 20.4 and the whole family really enjoyed the fruit, this was the first DF I’ve fruited so I’m looking forward to the flavor complexity of the purple ones as this one was a sugar bomb with no acid/complexity. Happy Spring.

[spaugh]

Nate, I just wait until they turn 80-100% yellow. I use a brush to remove the spines before cutting it off the vine. Nice looking fruit Nate!

Simon

Thanks Simon! I harvested the fruit last night, I was hoping the recent heat would pump a little extra sugar into it. I got a brix of 20.4 and the whole family really enjoyed the fruit, this was the first DF I’ve fruited so I’m looking forward to the flavor complexity of the purple ones as this one was a sugar bomb with no acid/complexity. Happy Spring.

Nice, I've been waiting to cut mine also.  It looks like it should be over 500 grams.  These are quite a bit bigger than palora. 

[spaugh]

i got tired of waiting for this thing to yellow up and cut it.  It had been there since October or November.  It weighs just over 1 lb.



I thought it was pretty good and sent the pic to a friend.  She proceeded to burst my bubble and tell me her store bought palora is 700g.  Maybe we will get ours bigger in coming years, the plant is still small and I've also started grafting this one onto better rootstocks.

[Mike T]

Went to a friend's place yesterday and he has been getting good crops of Ecuador yellows for a few years and this is a fairly typical one.

[nosoup4u]

i got a cutting from Brad's Peruvian Yellow mid-2019, and after about 2 years it's trying to flower for the first time!  I'm hoping the fruit will set while there is still some warm weather so maybe it ripens quicker, but I'm not getting my hopes up.  Could be fun to pick a fruit in February while it's cold and (hopefully) raining.




I wasn't sure how it would handle the cooler Bay Area climate, but it's doing surprisingly well.  I realized it doesn't like cold + wet, so I bring it onto our porch (outside but protected from rain) in the winter and it does just fine. It definitely slows down for several months from ~November through ~March though.

[simon_grow]

I stopped by Brads place today and some of the giant Megalanthus seedlings I brought over a while back are starting to hold some giant fruit.

This fruit looks like it’ll be a pound or more


Simon

[kh0110]

Current fruit from Brad's cutting received some years back:

[simon_grow]

Nice Thera!

I got rid of my smaller Megalanthus and I’m growing the giant one now. The great thing about these fruit is that they ripen so late in the year. It’s this variety, Frankies Red and the regular DF varieties, I’ve been able to have DF year round.

Simon

[Bush2Beach]

I have some yellows but haven’t got heat enough for flowers , while voodoo child and american beauty fruit in the summer for me.
I have a giant yellow from Federico growing and it is much spinier and dainty than my other yellow.
Many smaller flexible spines. Have you guy’s fruited Federico’s selection or one like this ? Mines just labeled “giant yellow megalanthus”

[simon_grow]

I grew out so many different seedlings that I lost track. We were probably growing out at least ten different selections of the giant type Megalanthus and their branches do have morphological differences but the quality of their fruit is very similar.

I don’t believe we have Federico’s selection but I’m pretty happy with what we selected.

Simon

[spaugh]

The plants always look a bit ragged.  I dont think these megalanthus like the dry weather here.  But they do make fruit and the fruit are really sweet.  I cant tell the difference between store ones.  Its also fully self fruiting, i did not hand pollinate these at all and almost all flowers set fruit.

[Plantinyum]

I also have 5 megalanthus seedlings grafted onto and regular unknown undatus. They grew ferociously past summer  and hopefully this year they get to the top of the post and start having some hanging branches.

[Jose Spain]

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.   

[Plantinyum]

A fast question: are all megalanthus strains self fruitfull ?

[Jose Spain]

Pay attention to the flower, especially when is closing again, if the stigma gets widely in contact with the anthers as the flower closes back then there is a good chance for the variety to be able to set flowers without hand pollination, all megalanthus cvs as far as I know are at least self-fertile.

For example I suspect that the Pal 3 giant megalanthus that I posted today earlier will set fruit on its own (the flowers are as I described) but I hand pollinated the 3 fruits to ensure the crop and see the kind of fruit it produces (and also because I'm using this cv as a parental to make crosses and get new varieties with big size for the autumn-winter season).

[spaugh]

A fast question: are all megalanthus strains self fruitfull ?

Yes, I never pollinate any of mine and they set almost every fruit.

I have to admit though, Im not really liking these that much.  They kind of lack flavor compared to purple DF and the thorns suck.  Im getting nice bigs ones but just dont like them that much.  The thorns are a real pain.

[Plantinyum]

Nice to hear that they are self fruitfull, my plants are young still but at least i wont worry about them fruiting, my regular undatuses i am not sure even if i get flowers that they will set fruit....i,ll try my best to cross the two, only if they flower at the same time though.