The Tropical Fruit Forum

Not willing to pay $8.00 a piece for cherimoya.  I'm not a cheapscape but won't allow myself to be ripped off.   Want to try something other than the crap you get, if you're lucky, from a local grocery store here in Texas.  Have checked mail order stores and they're not only expensive but I have no clue as to their credibility, where the fruits come from (Chile or SoCal) and the quality of the fruits.

Any ideas or links?

Thanks,
Mark

I have a very healthy Oro Negro tree with fruit that matures about 2-3 mos. after S. Florida.  Some is falling off suggesting it's mature.  Seed is either not sprouting inside or has a very short radical emerging, a good thing.  Skin color is either a dark purple or black.  Texture is excellent (makes good guacamole') but my problem with this fruit is it's bland, lacking in character and low in oil, probably the W. Indies working here.    Am about to top work it to one of my better trees.  Not really concerned about productivity.

Any one like this fruit? 



Home grown and for you folks in cold climes I have a HUGE bed of wonderful volunteer cilantro which made it thru a few hours of 14F and below 20F for hours.

Typical hype on a "new" one, so how's the taste and other features of the tree?

Planted out of a 1 gal. pot.



Topped down to a stick above the first node.



First output June 6:


It's now a beautiful, heavily branched 5' tree with 6 or 7 scaffold branches that I expect to fruit next year.  Being that LZ is such a beast it's low permanent wood (scaffold) branches that I wanted to create to manage height......and did. Nov. 16

Phyton 35, labeled for consumables, sounds too good to be true.  I have several avocado trees that according to a local visual inspection by a disease pathologist is either canker (fungus) or phomopsis. Will send a tissue sample off to TX A & M, College Station, for analysis.  Until then I ordered a gallon of Phyton 35.  Not cheap, $249 shipped, but I've already lost my Sharwil and don't want to lose my Holiday, Ardith, Gwen, Oro Negro, Sir Prize, Reed or Pinkerton, mangos, etc.  This product has been used in Mexico and other countries for 30 years.  The broad spectrum curative and preventative of a systemic copper sulfate is incredible.

Pathogens controlled:

    Botrytis
    Downy Mildew
    Erwinia
    Powdery Mildew
    Xanthomonas
    Pseudomonas
    Alternaria
    Rus
    Volutella
    Cercospora
    Phytophthora
    Bacterial Blight
    Colletotrichum
    Cylindrocladium
    Crown Gall
    Scab
    Black Spot
    Anthracnose
    Diplodia
    Cedar Apple Rust
    Entomosporium
    Verticillium
    Phomopsis
    Dothistroma
    Apple Scab
    Fireblight
    Rhizoctonia
    Pythium
    Leaf Spot
    Pseudomonas Blight
    Angular Leaf Spot
    Gray Mold
    Black rot
    Alternaria Blight
    Leaf Scorch
    Bacterial Spot
    Bacterial Speck
    Bacterial Wilt
    Early Blight
    Late Blight
    Septoria Leaf Spot

I asked a tech if it's good for citrus greening control, HLB, and he said it hadn't been field tested so there's no data.  It has been used for control of a nasty bacterial disease wiping out precious old live oaks here in Texas and red oaks - Live Oak Wilt Disease.

Any one have any experience with Phyton 35 or 27?

http://phytoncorp.com/products-overview/#



Mark

Greenhouse grower here with a south facing guillotine style 4' H vent along the south wall. Come fall-spring when some of my trees get full sun thru this vent the fruit and foliage burn on Reed. Sharwil and Gwen avocado trees growing there.  They are in-ground, bottomless RootBuilder pots so they can't be moved. Solution?  A spray of Surround Crop Protection - kaolin clay. Fruit and foliage have a very light white coat on them now only in the areas that receive direct sun. Is supposed to also work well for grasshopper and stinkbug control although I've not tried it for that.....just got a 25 lb. bag.  Ran me about $46 shipped.

Folks in Arizona and other very hot areas would do well to spray their crops come late spring. 

Mark

Can't find a link to Zill's nursery or rather any info he's collected for his sales approach.  I am looking for a description of his trees - their growth habit, size, fruit profiles, etc.

Thanks

I've always dreaded the work required to get perfect chunks of mango, until now.  Here's the kitchen tools I tried recently - serrated grapefruit spoon, regular spoon, curved serrated grapefruit knife.



All tools were used to scrape or cut the meat out after cutting the fruit in half. The grapefruit knife worked the best.

Now here's what's weird.  My wife and I were doing a batch of mango salsa last night using my recently harvested Pickerings and lo and behold they peeled like an avocado!  Being that I'm new to growing mangos, do other varieties peel like this?  Can't believe I got a whole chunk of meat out of each side!  Nice thing too is the super thin seed, about 1.5 cm.

Here's some recently harvested Pickerings that I used a regular spoon on. 



Next project - I'm going make a cutting tool by putting an edge on one side, top only, of a S/S spoon using my (wonderful) WorkShop knife and tool sharpener. 

Mark

All right you Florida/Cali mango growing girlie men, step aside. We grow 'em big in Texas.  Variety - the politically in-correct 'Redskin'.    A little over 4" across, pure juice and sugar. Most have a redder skin than this but this one is soft and tree ripened to the max.   The peach ice cream is to die for.

The results showed that every treatment improved tree health over untreated controls. However, the
most significant gain in tree health and productivity was from the micro elements Zinc, Manganese,
Molybdenum, and Boron, along with the macro element magnesium. His source materials were all
sulfates, so the sulfur component could be playing a role as well. The second most influential
component came from the macro elements, Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium.

http://www.arapahocitrus.com/files/HLB_Foliar_Nutritional_Programs.pdf

I have applied these micros either as a cocktail or via a combine product and I finally nailed the chlorosis problem I was having.  Biggest revelation was how much citrus needs Mg.  Here's the products I use starting with Microvite. http://www.seedcoat.com/MicroVite.html

I never had any success with Southern Ag. Their micros products seemed to exacerbate the chlorosis.

Here are some before (corrective applications) and after showing the old chlorotic leaves and the new ones.







This is a Rio Red which has dropped all of its chlorotic leaves.  This thing was in such bad shape last year I thought I was gonna lose it. It's healthy, much more vigorous and is holding fruit.



Mark

For 2 years I've been trying to figure out why newly maturing leaves on this Gwen have been bronzing.  Bronzing being a symptom of some kind of stress.   Thought it might be a reaction to plant food so I flushed with rain water 3 times recently.  It continues after 2 weeks of watching and waiting.  I fertilized it with a balanced food yesterday along with everything else.  None of my avocados with the exception of Reed is doing this and Reed is becoming a large tree and only shows a few minor bronzing leaves out of hundreds.  Any input would be appreciated.

It's on a Florida seedling, probably WI X Guat.

Mark
 

About 5:10 into this video that Millet linked us to, the author slices through the citrus rootstock to redirect auxins and the apical dominance affect from the terminal rootstock area to the basal chip bud growth below.  By making the rootstock top growth lower than the chip graft, growth auxins will be directed to that area and away from the rootstock.  I have done this with citrus but never avocado.   I have 5 avocado grafts that are very slow to push, yet still green.  What do you think?  Should I try this on my avocado rootstock?   Bud Grafting Citrus Fruit Trees


mod edit: If you remove the 's' from https it will allow the video to display directly on the forum.

Eureka! 

Place a couple of cut lemons, pointy side up, under the skin of the turkey before roasting for a Thanksgiving meal the family will still be talking about next year. Mah kinda breast. Key limes for da A cuppers....grapefruit for da D cuppers. 



Happy Thanksgiving, ya'll!