The Tropical Fruit Forum

Hey all,
I’ve had a (now 5ft) minneola tangelo in container for 7 years now and it’s been a complete disappointment. It’s only produced fruit a couple of times and they were the wrong shape and terrible. It has also has a little bit of die back periodically. I’ve repotted, and completely root pruned in the past and the leaves looks otherwise healthy.

My question is with the die back should I use this as a rootstock or just get rid of it?

Hey everyone looking for advice. My wife daughter love passionfruit, and it the growing of such that results in them supporting my crazy obsession. So I’m looking for the way to get the most yeild. Due to my growing circumstances I’m willing to put more time in micromanaging the vine. FYI I have 2 vines each in a 35 gallon which I trained on a beam.its adjustable so I can can get right in there and hand pollinate and purine when needed.i kept it trimmed in the winter and then let it go on the spring. I fertigate weekly.

Question should I terminate the budding limbs to promote better fruit production? Some vine ends have between 5 and 11 flower buds and there are 14 of these limbs on each vine. In the past by letting it grow wild and hand pollinating with a brush on a stick (probably missed a bunch of flowers) I was able to get 50 fruits. 200 per plant seems to much. Any experience with acitvelt managing a vine. I’m wondering if it’s like grapes in a vineyard.

Here are pics with the aluminum beams in the down position, the up, down from
The indside, and the vine limbs that one has 2 flowers and 11 buds.
 

Hey I’m a cold climate prairie boy from Canada who is used to seeing tropical fruit trees in greenhouses. I’m currently travelling with my family in an rv from LA to the redwoods. Any cool fruit tree places to check out?

Has anybody germinated hawthorn seeds specifically succulenta and Douglassi? Acid scarification is mentioned, I was looking at using a refill of battery acid as the h2so4 source but I wasn’t sure about what molarity to use. Any experience doing this?

Hey all, fyi for all those container people. I hard purchased these xtra large adjustable plant caddies off Amazon 3 y ago. Seemed strong but must have weakened over time possibly due to sun. The big issue was that with the large wheels it sits quite high off the ground and when one of the sides collapsed the momentum of the 35gallon pot would have caused the whole thing to flip right over if it didn’t happen before my eyes.

Hey all, so I’ve been fertigating (water and dilute fertillizer) my containerized plants with home made organic liquid fertillizer from a worm farm and bokashi composter. It’s working well and everything is super healthy. I’ve been trying to track down a hose end sprayer that had a dilution factor of 10. Does anyone have any suggestions.

So I’ve got my first bunch of loquats which are in the process of ripening. I’ve never seen or eaten a loquat fruit before. These fruits are starting to get soft, but they don’t seem orange enough and there is still a touch of green. Do I leave them on for longer? Thanks I’m advance for your knowledge.

Does anyone know if the potassium in insecticidal soaps provides any benefit as a foliar feed?

So after 6 years of trying to make an ecosystem in my greenhouse where pests/predators/pollinators would keep things in perfect balance I have officially given up. Spider mites, aphid, thrips and white fly were all controlled with predatory bugs. Scale was sometimes a mild problem on a couple of citrus (I’m looking at out you Tangelo) especially in the spring but as soon as I could took those susceptible plants out in the summer they all went away. Last year however the mealybugs were everywhere. Dragonfruit, cattley guava and loquat were the only plants that didn’t get infested. All my companion plants (flowers, legumes, fruit) were loaded.

So I got rid of the companion plants,  and all my trees/vines outside for the entire summer. All pests completely disappeared within 2 weeks. My plants have been back in for 3 weeks found a couple of hard scale, mealy, spider mites, whitefly have been found with detailed examinations of every plant surface every 3 days. Using 0.5% safers soap on entire plant for whitefly/spider mites, focal treatment of 0.5% soap for mealy. And weekly 1% canola oil with pyrethin on entire plants on mango and passionfruit (for hard scale). I also got a backpack sprayer with proper hort oil based off Millets suggestions in case I have to nuke the whole place.

Thoughts?

Thoughts

Hello to all the greenhouse growers out there. I was wondering how you go about controlling your vapor pressure deficit. I can’t find much on the market for the hobby greenhouse. I have a jimmy rigged system that is based off different 3 different temperature intervals each with their own humidity set points. It works quite well except for when I have to spray things down for pests in the late winter. I was curious what everyone else does.

I have increasing shade in my backyard, I used to be able to grow grapes but now there is only vegetative growth. I transplanted gooseberries against a fence that only gets evening sun. They produced a dozen berries last year but none this year. Should I try something else that is shade tolerant like thimbelberries or black currants (i have both in other parts of my yard) or do u think it’s futile? Note I had the trees thinned last year and I don’t think it did anything.

I had a nectarine in a pot that may have not had enough chill hours this winter. The tree still hasn’t done anything but a scratch test shows it’s still green. Any tricks to forcing it to leaf out or is it just done?