The Tropical Fruit Forum

You can mist the leaves with dilute water soluble fertilizer and see if they get darker.

The number one for me is 36-8, I wanted one for a long time, but when I bought grafted trees, they always died from shipping shock.

Every other tree seems to rebound just fine however, so I'm going with bad luck.

I love the flavor, and ship-ability (thick skin and can ripen well if picked early).

Starch supposedly makes phenomenal rootstock if the scientific literature is to be believed (vigorous and highly productive).

I'm bumping this up because someone out there has to have some more info, and it's going to be at least another year before this one is large enough to fruit.

The sap smell on mine smells like geranium/ camphor.

I'm really curious what flavors come through for people, as I can imagine a pretty interesting result with a sap that smells like this.

For the OP, it came from Gary's project, D-2, Jakarta seedling.

The mexicolas are very vigorous trees. Really only a few varieties are suitable to grow in pots. I think Wurtz gets the nod, but really avos like being in the ground.

Fuerte and Bacon can be great if picked ripe, and their seasons do complement Hass well, but for cold hardiness, you should consider mostly Mexican types with seasons Dec-February, ones like Fuerte and Mexicola would be prime contenders.

I am looking for this variety, I've heard that it's ugly, but a survivor.

Very nice harvest.   I am jealous, I have a large in-ground grafted cherimoya but I have yet to get a single fruit to set.  I flowers a lot and I have been hand-pollinating them when I feel like it but I am lazy and probably not doing it right.  Meanwhile my container atemoya produces fine.  I am thinking of replacing the cherimoya with the atemoya (or topworking various annonas onto it) simply because hand pollinating is a chore. 

I just want to try the fruit first once before I give up on it.

Fruit can vary greatly year to year. I found a tree on a property that was basically sticks (mature tree, but not watered for years), after applying water and fertilizer, it began growing vigorously, and fruiting well. The fruit quality was very poor for 5 years or so, soft, insipid flesh, with flavor that was difficult to appreciate. You could tell the fruit was ripening on the tree much before it was ready (dull skinned).

The last couple years, the fruit has been superb, comparable to Honeyhart, though smaller, it has good flesh/seed ratio, excellent bubblegum type flavor, and thick texture. But you can tell the tree is holding them until they're ready.

Point is it can take a few crops to produce representative fruit.

You will have no trouble finding them in Atlanta area. That said, Butias are often painfully slow growers, the age you are searching for could be as small as a #7 pot.

Quote from: Oolie on March 01, 2023, 01:17:52 PM

As those are all monoembryonic types, I would plant a rootstock now and graft it with one of those types after it's three years old.

Does it care matching rootstock and scions with mono or poly?

I grafted Kesar and Alphonso on my unknow fruited rootstock; I have been eat Kesar the last few year, and Alphonso last year first time.They both have wonderful aroma but alphonso taste stronger sweeter. I like both. No Keitt for me -- too watery and nothing special.

What matters is the desired varieties to plant are all mono types, and therefore must be grafted to get a true-to-type plant.

You haven't had a Keitt picked at maturity, or a late season Keitt. It's a good one if the correct crop is picked correctly.

In Fl, this cultivar is falling out of favor due to disease susceptibility, poor fruit set, and splitting. Where you are is even hotter and wetter if you're at low altitude, so maybe consider a similar but more hardy variety. The recommendations as far as I've read would be Indian cultivars Imam Pasand, or Alampur Baneshan/ Banganapalli.

If you can find any of these available in your region, you might consider them.

I'd be grateful for a CA source who is certified to share material.

Does Zills post their new introductions on their Facebook page? Trying to keep my finger on the pulse of the latest mango trends.

They're a wholesale nursery, so your best bet is to search posts on here for info, especially those close to the sources like Har, Rob, and Alex. Usually they are the first to share info on here. You could also try purchasing fruit from the ZHPP fruit stand and you may luck out, or might get something picked at a time which doesn't give a fair representation.

BTW, Alex recently updated many of the pages on the Tropical Acres Farms site, so if you haven't looked there in a while, there's new info, especially into the medium term performance info for stuff grafted 3+ years ago (many of the recent Zill releases).

I'm eager to try one this year, my plant was devoured by gophers, so I'm going to have to replant it.