The Tropical Fruit Forum

Getting some cool colors on new growth:

Yes!  it seems the new growth is a gradient of magenta to green, like the sheen of an oil spill.  Nothing like other artocarpus I have seen so far.

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I had never heard of SugarBelle.  Looks to be a patented variety.  I'm also curious how it compares to Minneola.  "Very vigorous" isn't a good thing for me, though.   

Some of the best citrus I've had were Minneola tangelos (bought at the grocery store), however they are very inconsistent.  The ones I have grown myself so far have been soft and watery, and most of the store bought ones were same.  However, I am not giving up on them yet, I just grafted a Minneola onto flying dragon dwarfing rootstock as the nursery-bought one I had was far too vigorous.  I am going to give Minneola 3-4 years and see if I can get the amazing fruit I once tried, and if not I will probably ditch it. 

Yup!  I wouldn't rip up a perfectly good tree if you're happy with it, I just mean for anybody starting new Nordmann is the way to go.

here's example of zip tie + bag



this one the scion already had parafilm, but if it doesn't I don't bother adding it

my method is to use a few small zip ties to hold the graft union tight, then put a plastic baggie over the whole thing.  I don't use buddy tape/parafilm anymore. 

This method works for me because I struggle to get the film and other tape wrapped tightly, often I am grafting a bunch of branches onto one rootstock and there are thorns or other branches in the way that makes wrapping difficult.  I really like zip ties instead, they hold very tight.

There was recently some discussion in buy/sell/trade about lucuma rootstock options and from this thread it sounds like lucuma, canistel, mamey, ross all close enough to be graft compatible.  Good to hear, I had grafted some excess lucuma scion onto a ross sapote seedling, and I still have some more I might graft onto my canistel.

I planted mine in ground in my greenhouse to give it a try, fully expecting to cut it down if it isn't amazing.  I hear mixed things about it.  I've got other annonas, I will probably only keep one or two in the end.

Red lime has sour orange taste, it isn't anything like a typical lime.  It tastes like a rangpur&kumquat hybrid

The grocery store types eureka and lisbon are nice and productive.  Limequats are good if you are looking for single serve juice to squeeze into a drink. 

It is greenhoused in winter so climate isn't an issue.  Mine is in a 25gal container and is about 7ft tall, trunk diameter is about 1.5in

I can't speak from experience, but my recollection from various threads on this topic is the most common rootstocks are cherimoya and pond apple.  There's a table of known compatibility somewhere if you search the forum, though it isn't very complete.