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Messages - Galatians522

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1
Citrus General Discussion / Re: How long do citrus trees live? How long do their clones live - less time?
« on: Today at 09:30:49 AM »
Bamboo is fairly unique in that aspect. For most plants, the cloning process starts the life expectancy over again. For example the Brewster lychee variety is somewhere around 1,000 years old. Airlayered clones made from the variety have the same life expectancy now as they did 100 years ago. Oranges (and I assume most other citrus) have a productive life expectancy for commercial purposes of between 30 and 50 years. Grafted clones will have the same life expectancy regardless of the age of the tree they were produced from. For homeowner purposes, however, the slight decline in yield after age 30 is not significant enough to warrant re-planting the tree. So, the life expectancy is easily double. My best guess is that most door yard citrus would have a life expectancy of 60-100 years (not counting the effects of HLB if applicable).

2
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Turning a circle into a square head to head irrigation alternating riser height
« on: March 30, 2023, 10:27:17 PM »
Quote from: bovine421 on March 30, 2023, 03:53:23 PM
After studying many images I've come to the conclusion that Riser height should be uniformly the same height. I found this very interesting video worthy of watching

https://youtu.be/DgOgBCZOoQI

I've never seen anyone alternate riser height. Pressure regulators are pretty neat. I was just in a grove with a large elevation change and the owner was showing me that each sub-main had a pressure regulator on it. It kept the whole grove at 25 psi instead of 15 at the top of the hill and 50 at the bottom.

3
Temperate Fruit Discussion / Re: Difference between Ziziphus Jujuba and Mauritiana?
« on: March 27, 2023, 09:31:56 AM »
Quote from: tropic_tester on March 27, 2023, 03:40:11 AM
Quote from: Galatians522 on March 26, 2023, 09:38:23 PM
Z. Jujuba is the Chinese Jujube. It needs some chill to bloom and fruit. Z. Mauritania is the Indian Jujube. It is still deciduois in my experience, but will fruit with little to no chill. It is not as high a quality fruit from what i have been told.

Interesting, maybe my understanding was incorrect. My understanding from my local fb gardening groups has been that Thai jujube is a variety of Indian jujube and that it's quite good and juicy. I was also under the impression that Indian jujube is not graft compatible with a normal jujube since the rootstock would go dormant and the scion would die. The seedling that sprouted is quite young so it's a little too early probably for me to determine growth habits. I guess I'll wait a bit before I make a decision on what to do with it.

I have never eaten the Chinese. The Thai jujube seedllings I have tried were only mildly sweet unless picked just as they start to get yellow. If they get to the brown stage, they develop a funky flavor that I don't particularly care for. Eaten yellow, they are a good fruit, just not as sweet as what I have heard the Chinese is.

4
Temperate Fruit Discussion / Re: grafting onto california native prunus ilicifolia?
« on: March 26, 2023, 10:02:59 PM »
Quote from: Epiphyte on March 10, 2023, 03:02:13 AM
anyone ever try grafting anything onto hollyleaf cherry or catalina cherry?  i'm especially curious if the capulin cherry (prunus salicifolia or prunus serotina var. salicifolia) is compatible.  they are both in the same subgenus, but in different sections.

on a related note, could these two species be crossed?  i think that they bloom around the same time.

Go for it! I read everything I could find on a similar topic a number of years ago. Here is a summary of what I found. Capulin is not cross or graft compatible with any of the other cultivated stone fruit. It will cross with Black cherry (P. serotina) and many say its just a sub-species of that tree. Similarly, P. caroliniana, the Laurel Cherry, is not graft compatible with any cultivated stone fruit. Knowing that the "other side" of the prunus genus has wide compatibility has led me to believe that laurel cherries and bird cherries (Capulin etc.) would be compatible--although I have no proof of this. Getting them to hybridize would likely proove more difficult.

5
Temperate Fruit Discussion / Re: Blueberry Grafting?
« on: March 26, 2023, 09:47:10 PM »
Quote from: NatAp22 on February 03, 2023, 10:09:36 PM
Have anyone had any experience grafting blueberries? Curious as how a southern highbush variety that bloom early would do if grafted to higher chill variety such as tifblue that is resistant to disease and heat/drought tolerance. Being able to delay bloom would be a hugeee benefit. Please comments if any.

Being grafted to a higher chill rootstock might delay bloom slightly. If you are going to go to the trouble of grafting, Sparkleberry (aka Farkleberry) is a blueberry relative that is graft compatible and can grow to tree size. Apparently, it makes an awesome blueberry rootstock. The biggest problem is that it self propagates by runners. UF had a sparkleberry selection that grew only a single trunk. I presume that you are trying to extend your season. You might look at the Star variety. It blooms later than most southern highbush varieties, but has a shorter ripening time.

6
Temperate Fruit Discussion / Re: Difference between Ziziphus Jujuba and Mauritiana?
« on: March 26, 2023, 09:38:23 PM »
Z. Jujuba is the Chinese Jujube. It needs some chill to bloom and fruit. Z. Mauritania is the Indian Jujube. It is still deciduois in my experience, but will fruit with little to no chill. It is not as high a quality fruit from what i have been told.

7
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Pineapple thread
« on: March 26, 2023, 09:27:24 PM »
Quote from: spaugh on March 26, 2023, 05:34:26 PM
Greenhouse, they need tomstay dry when it is cold.  Pineapples love greenhouses.

The good news in Central Florida is that it is dry when we get cold. I have actually seen pineapples growing wild here under oak canopy (which protects them just enough from the frost) on numerous occasions. We can grow pineapples like y'all can grow stone fruit. Well, almost...  :P  ;D

8
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Pineapple thread
« on: March 26, 2023, 09:21:17 PM »
Quote from: bovine421 on March 26, 2023, 10:52:42 AM
Fertilization how frequent and what type do you use do you use with a pineapple in a 7 gallon Nursery pot. I have some Miracle-Gro bloom for my plumeris. Recently I've taken an interest in growing pineapples since I like to grow most of my friends are like-minded and since I let them know that I want to grow pineapples they've been giving me quite a few I have approximately 20 now. Dm2 Sugarloaf Natal. Since I'm new at this I have no idea how needy pineapples are



Pineapple fruit size will directly correlate to plant size. You can't get a 5 lb pineapple off a 12" plant. My old "Florida Fruit" book recommends pouring 1 cup of liquid fertilizer solution (mixed with water according to the instructions on the bag) in the bud each month with 3 Tblsp. of granular in April, August, and December. I found the granular to be a pain because its hard not to get it in the crown because pineapple leaves are designed to funnel everything that direction. Even if just a tiny amount gets in there it burns the leaves pretty badly. I would just go with the liquid. My Dad used 20-20-20 and picked 1 pineapple that weighed 11 pounds--not bad for a grocery store twist top! I used 24-8-16 with good results and picked almost 40 grocery size pineapples one year. About the time I was getting cocky the coons found me. The next year they picked 50 of my 55 pineapples for me and last year I got 2 (both of which had to be caged. Some nights they would eat 5 whole pineapples! Until I get an electric fence put up the pineapples are on starvation rations.

9
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Alpine strawberries from seed in subtropical Florida
« on: March 22, 2023, 11:35:27 PM »
Quote from: Epicatt2 on March 22, 2023, 01:11:21 PM
This strawberry thread also leads me to ask about the new introduction 'Pineberries' that I've been reading about which produce berries that look like a negative version of a red strawberry, i.e., having ivory colored fruit covered with red seeds!

Pineberries just this season seem to be showing up in places like Publix in the Tampa, FL area.

But will they grow and survive in west central Florida, I'm wondering.  WIll the plants last more than one season?  Anyone know?

Paul M.
==

The ones you are buying in Publix were grown in Florida. UF bred them from a Japanese strawberry. They will probably be no more heat tollerent than any of the other Florida strawberries. I know of several people that have kept plants over the summer. Shade and nematode free soil seem to be requirements with regular fungicide applications being very helpful. Back when plants were $0.25 each it was more costly to keep them over the summer than to buy new. Not sure if that is still true.

10
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Alpine strawberries from seed in subtropical Florida
« on: March 21, 2023, 11:29:11 PM »
Its funny that you mention this. I was just doing some research on the topic last week. Apparently, some people have fruited alpine strawberries from seed in Florida. If you look at the comments section in this link, one of the posters was from Florida and says that he got fruit.

https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwiCtsDdye79AhUmypQJHRhhAmAYABAGGgJ5bQ&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAASJuRosDKwul5F0Yf9B9Vwx5SFEEzAaPP3lPEdno_0hluAgIk8HYDh&sig=AOD64_2m8yJJg8UsaewE_e-DPlqkbsbW8Q&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwjvpLbdye79AhULk2oFHXfLDW4Qwg8oAHoECAIQCw&adurl=

I have decided to try growing some seeds from Plant City strawberries that I got a couple weeks ago. They are stratifying in the fridge right now. I will plant indoors in July with the goal of having sets that can go outside by October. Since I will be growing seed from hybrids, I will need to select for several generations to stabilize the genetics that I want. If it works I will be able to develop a Florida heirloom strawberry that I can grow from seed every year just like my tomatoes... Surely if it were this simple someone else would have done it already??? Time will tell.

11
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Fruit trees that can handle warm dry air during the winter?
« on: March 19, 2023, 07:29:34 AM »
Its 40% humidity here in Florida right now. California regularly gets much lower than that. It does not phase our citrus. I am wondering if you could solve the problem by deflecting or difusing the air that is blowing out of the dehumidifier.

12
Citrus General Discussion / Re: soil wetting agents
« on: March 16, 2023, 10:26:45 PM »
If you want to do a thorough soak, a thick plastic trash bag could be slipped around the pot, filled with water, and tied to the trunk. A pot saucer is another option that might work.

13
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Cold hardiness of Mango and Avocados in Zone 9B Florida
« on: March 10, 2023, 02:24:46 PM »
There are a number of cold hardy avocados. Mangos are another story. I have come to the conclusion that there is very little actual difference between mangos in cold tollerence. One season you may see less damage on a particulr cultivar and more on another. The next season that may be exactly reversed. For example, Pickering was originally selected because as a seedling it was not damaged by temps that caused major damage to older trees near by. It did not prove to be more cold hardy as a mature tree. And there is an account on this thread reporting that it is more susceptible than other cultivars! Bailey's Marvel is another one that has been touted as more cold hardy--I have not seen that. I think that tree size and the level of dormancy has more of an influence than cultivar. I will add that I have no experience with any of the north Indian or Pakistani cultivars that Alex has talked about. I suppose that it is possible they could be more cold tollerent (since it takes a stronger cold spell to make them bloom), but based on prior observations I am not expecting much.

14
Citrus General Discussion / Re: The Situation on Citrus Greening? Does Florida Still Produce OJ?
« on: March 09, 2023, 09:32:30 PM »
Quote from: cotter pin on March 09, 2023, 07:45:58 AM
  We get our orange juice from Joshua Farms in Arcadia and it's not from concentrate and has been very good over the years, but I do taste a difference lately, I know the orange is not in season so I wonder if they source from a different source then themselves and wonder if it is from concentrate. Has anyone seen what happens to juice from concentrate? They basically boil the fruit down to a slurry of pulp, extract all the oxygen out of it, this includes all the nutrition, then store it in big vats for months on end, the slurry has no taste or smell, then when they make it into juice again they add perfume to make it taste like oranges again.
They are picking Valencia oranges here in Highlands County now. They make excellent juice. Not from concentrate Valencia juice can be frozen for 4 months without much loss in quality. That is how most of the NFC juice companies got year round production. Valencias were picked until June and they used their stockpile of frozen juice until October when Hamlins started being harvested again. Perfume is not an ingredient in OJ concentrate to my knowledge. I am glad to hear that Joshua Creek is still selling NFC, Maxwells here in Avon Park does as well. They are our last local juice stand. There used to be one one every corner.

15
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: OxiDate, Any experiance use this on citrus?
« on: March 08, 2023, 10:16:40 PM »
It is a good general fungicide/bactericide. It works well for some things and not so well for others (it will not control anthracnose in lychee in my experience). I have never seen it harm a plant when applied according to the label. We used it for years on our Blueberry field. It has virtually 0 residual effect, so you need to spray on a weekly basis.

16
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Yangmei (Morella/Myrica rubra) thread
« on: March 06, 2023, 10:02:54 PM »
Quote from: roblack on March 06, 2023, 09:41:08 PM
I'm no myrica expert, but these flowers look female to me:



They are hard to tell apart when they are small. I think those are male flowers, though. I was looking at some wild plants today and some of the immature stage male flowers looked a lot like your picture. The female flowers on my bush are longer and branch more. Its got 1 main stalk with something like 6 or 8 side branches coming off it at right angles. If you look closely at pictures of berries on-line you can see what I am talking about--they come in little clusters at the nodes (not singly).

17
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Illegal or Not?? Mango Scions
« on: March 04, 2023, 11:11:37 PM »
It was not gmo. I have not looked for that particular blueberry variety in a long time. It is currently for sale on-line. So, you must be right.

18
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Illegal or Not?? Mango Scions
« on: March 04, 2023, 04:20:13 PM »
Quote from: fliptop on March 04, 2023, 08:08:28 AM
Galatian522, my planting Coconut Cream seeds was not meant as an affront to the hard work of the Zills.  I originally didn't know it was patented (didn't even know there was such a mango until 2017 or 2018). The 2018 seedling I have flowering has leaves that smell like what Alex calls Indian - Alphonso. I do not like this type of mango. If it holds fruit, I may need to enlist someone who like Alphonso-type mangos to rate its quality.

Based on what I know of the private individuals who do this kind of work--Zills, Zagers, etc. They are fine with you growing seeds out in your back yard for personal consumption--that is how their families got started in this, after all. Just don't turn it into a money making enterprise. On the other hand, big corporations like Monsanto and the University of Florida will hunt you down if they find out that you have grown seeds from their plants. I personally know of a guy who grew blueberry seedlings from UF genetics (blueberry seeds are zygotic, by the way). He ended up with 1 or 2 excellent plants and when the University found out, they came to confiscate the plants and said that they owned the propagation rights. I will add 1 caveat, however. Plant patents expire after 20 years unless they are renewed. Once the patent has expired you can do what you want with the genetics.

19
Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / Top Tropicals New Location in Highlands County
« on: March 03, 2023, 10:53:23 PM »
Looks like Top Tropicals has opened a new location off of SR 66 near Sebring. The public entrance is at 9100 McRoy. They are open from 9-4 on Fridays and Saturdays. There was a very nice selection of plants from what I saw.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://toptropicals.com/html/toptropicals/ftmyers/bfarm.htm&ved=2ahUKEwiQ2KbupMH9AhUDRzABHUnxDqkQFnoFCIMBEAE&usg=AOvVaw1dH6cu-rW3QebErQrcqyWA

20
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Illegal or Not?? Mango Scions
« on: March 03, 2023, 10:45:50 PM »
I think that we should support the Zills and the amazing work that they are doing as much as possible. I want to say that I remember reading somewhere that only 1 out of about every 1,000-2,000 mango seeds they grow out gets released as a new variety. It costs about $25/year to take care of a mango tree (water, labor, fertilizer, taxes, etc.). If those trees take 5 years to bear, he has between $125,00 and $250,000 invested in each new variety that is released. Since I don't care to spend that kind of money myself, I am happy to pay him a few dollars extra for the one variety that he has asked people not to propagate.

21
Temperate Fruit Buy, Sell, & Trade / Re: ISO prunus mume seeds or plants
« on: February 28, 2023, 08:26:47 PM »
Well, that won't do much good. I see they are out of stock. Maybe you could call and order one.

22
Temperate Fruit Buy, Sell, & Trade / Re: ISO prunus mume seeds or plants
« on: February 28, 2023, 08:23:14 PM »
I believe Shiro Kaga is a prunus mume.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.isons.com/shop/fruit-trees/apricot-trees/shiro-kaga-apricot-tree/&ved=2ahUKEwiSivXTyLn9AhWGi7AFHZGtClwQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1vHynj-H2-GubIQ7KMvV6m

23
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: What happened to Spring in Florida feels like Summer
« on: February 28, 2023, 08:06:01 PM »
Quote from: bovine421 on February 28, 2023, 06:26:01 AM
Wishful thinking but hopefully this is a smoke-free Wildfire free dry season

https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/brush-fire-sends-smoke-plummeting-into-air-near-disney-world-universal-and-seaworld

I'm kinda doubting that at this point. Just yesterday I stopped to help put out a grass fire on the side of the road. Someone had spilled some chemicals that made the fire very hard to put out.

24
Tropical Vegetables and Other Edibles / Re: Biter Melon Aril Tastes like Cherry Candy?
« on: February 28, 2023, 08:02:06 PM »
Quote from: JCorte on February 28, 2023, 10:03:25 AM
Galatians522,  I have grown that specific variety you're asking about from Baker Creek.  It does not taste like cherry candy to me.  When the melon turns yellow the arils are red and become sweet, but doesn't taste good enough for me to grow for the arils.  I grew it two years in a row, first in Laguna Beach then second in Fallbrook.  I wanted to see if quality improved with the warmer temps at the farm, but they tasted the same both years. 

Janet

Bummer!

25
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: What happened to Spring in Florida feels like Summer
« on: February 27, 2023, 10:25:13 PM »
Quote from: Calusa on February 27, 2023, 11:33:31 AM
Hot, dry Springs in Florida are not uncommon. I investigated having an irrigation well installed in my back yard but the $3,500+ cost just to irrigate a few fruit trees nullified that option. So I setup a rain barrel next to my shed with a guttering system attached to the shed to catch the runoff from the roof and through the downspout into the barrel. I'll likely add an additional barrel later on.

There is some good information on the web about washing (jetting) in your own well. Based on how energetic you are and how far it is to water it could be an option.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://drillyourownwell.com/more-from-bill/&ved=2ahUKEwjyv53_obf9AhU7TTABHdHzBLQQFnoECCIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0wwMIs0tUrigw7chzeVCKw

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