The Tropical Fruit Forum

Tru, for me the annona seeds grow easily, just throw them in a community pot and wait. The citrus seeds take longer for me.

Here's one of my citrus seeds (pomelo) that I just started growing. Since I have a lot of them, I'm going to decapitate 10 seedlings shown in the photo and we can see if any of them survive. My guess is 0% success.

Anyone else want to guess how many or if any will survive after cutting off the leaf section (1/3 from top end)?

I agree with 0%

As I understanf it, there are no buds below the cotyledons. I believe that it is possible for a bud to regenerate from callus tissue, however, this takes time and there won't be enough energy in the seedling to support it that long unless it is in tissue culture media.

Quote from: Galatians522 on January 24, 2023, 09:18:10 PM

I was thinking of R. Parviflorus (not to be confused with R. Parvifolius of Australia). Its native range is mostly west of the Rocky Mtns. but also includes the Great Lakes region according to the great Google. R. Odoratus is a closely related species that has beautiful pinkish purple flowers. It is native to the eastern US including the Great Lakes Region again and ranges as far south as Alabama and Georgia. I think I have only taster the white flowered species. It is indeed thornless.

R. occidentalis is the black raspberry. It is also very good in my opinion and has a depth of flavor that is missing in a lot of the red raspberries.

Makes sense. I realize the black raspberry common name many people just call thimbleberries here. It does have a nice depth kinda like a tropical flavor in a sense. They have thorns.

I did a lot of research on rubus species when I was younger and even had some hybrids that I was working on for Florida. Unfortunately, my wide crosses did not prove fertile and I ran out of spare time to work on it. Maybe some day I'll have the chance to do it again.

Quote from: elouicious on January 24, 2023, 06:57:06 PM

where do you get the cricket frass?

or do you have crickets in a box?

I owned a cricket farm, Acheta domestica is the genus and species of the grey cricket.
I sold 89,000,000 crickets one year
Anyway I am getting the frass from my old farm.

I knew there had to be a reason for your chosen avatar.

I was thinking of R. Parviflorus (not to be confused with R. Parvifolius of Australia). Its native range is mostly west of the Rocky Mtns. but also includes the Great Lakes region according to the great Google. R. Odoratus is a closely related species that has beautiful pinkish purple flowers. It is native to the eastern US including the Great Lakes Region again and ranges as far south as Alabama and Georgia. I think I have only taster the white flowered species. It is indeed thornless.

R. occidentalis is the black raspberry. It is also very good in my opinion and has a depth of flavor that is missing in a lot of the red raspberries.

Quote from: Galatians522 on January 23, 2023, 09:37:58 PM

Natal Plum. Fully ripe fruit reminds me of cranberry apple sauce.

Must be better selections out there. The ones I had just made my mouth sticky from latex.

The best ones I have tasted were so ripe that they had started to get wrinkly.

Wow, what a great thread! In my experience kids like sugarcane. Its prolific, sweet, and has a long season. They ask for it a lot when they are in my garden. Miracle fruit is also very popular, does well in shade, and is on their eye level. I would plant some even if you have to put them in a raised bed or pot because of alkaline soil. I think its important to include some vegetables, too. Cranberry Leaf Hibiscus (aka False Roselle) has been surprisingly popular with kids (especially when served with miracle fruit) and is a creative way to introduce them to leaf vegetables. Roselle would probably also work and has the advantage of having a "fruit." Sweet "snack peppers" are another good one if she likes tomatoes. Mexican Sour Gherkin makes cute "mini cucumbers" and has very few pest problems. Bok Choy stems make a good substitute for celery in the old "ants on a log" snack and it is fairly easy to grow in Florida. Purple/red mombin is an option for a very productive shade tree that has not been mentioned.

I am not saying that these guys are absolutely wrong, but until they support their claims with a double blind study that is published in a peer reviewed scientific journal, it is just their theory. It is also interesting that most of the proponents of the theory are profiting from it in some way. 

I think this will erase all your doubts on the subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMmSH-628jI

So, I followed the link expecting a scientific study...You have a great sense of humor!

Quote from: fruit nerd on January 20, 2023, 10:29:15 PM

Galatians,
Up in Julatten there is one nursery with about 20 of them along the border but I have never seen any fruit on but they grow very well up there at 500m. It can sometimes go below 5C there in winter if I don't remember it wrong. But I think it's more pollination that is an issue.

I get about -2c/-3c on a pretty regular basis. 

In terms of ordering a box of honeybells or citrus it was always high but like $25 for a box of 15 or 20. Now it's $100. It's outrageous. Same with road side oranges. Used to be cheap as dirt now super high if you can find them. Usually they are passing California oranges off on the side of the road. Maybe $12 wholesale. If you have a good tree you can make some money selling them mail order.

Yes, $12 per 90lb box is the rounded wholesale number for Valencia oranges from USDA Citrus Statistics and represents mostly fruit that went to the processing plant (since only a small portion of FL Valencias go for fresh fruit). I don't remember the wholesale number for Honeybells for sure, but I think it was around $27 (for a 90lb box). That coud be a little off, though, because they lumped them with tangerines this year since production has gone so low. Your numbers point out exactly the disconnect that I am talking about. The grower is getting a wholesale price of $27 for a 90lb box of Tangelos that are being mailed as 9 boxes with ~10 lbs each at $100 a pop or $900. For growing the crop all year, harvesting it, and hauling it to the packing plant, the grower gets 3%. The middle man and retailer get the other 97%.

Yeah I have 3 lychee trees and one of them got it so I chopped it and got rid of it so it won't affect my other trees.

Unfortunately, your other trees probably have it, too. You just haven't noticed it yet.

Thanks for sharing about Safou.

Wow dehydrated Dabai!

I tried the African palm oil fruit for the first time yesterday. It's really good, very flavorful and oily ofcourse.
I never thought it would be this good and I probably had some biased hate towards it for the destruction of forest in SEA. But it not it's fault ofcourse, it's the big oil companies fault. The African oil palm is definitely worth adding to a food forest system.

I agree 100%! I don't think there is any other plant that can produce enough oil to meet the needs of the average family for a year from just one tree. If it were just a bit more hardy, I would be trying to grow it. And, as you say its people who are to blame for the destruction, not the plant.