Author Topic: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry  (Read 15991 times)

Jaboticaba45

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #100 on: May 14, 2022, 02:55:41 PM »






Different looking fruits, same tree.
Very interesting 🤨.
The red one is 11 brix
The dark red one is 15 brix.
So tell me what happened?
Even from the beginning the fruits look different?




socalbalcony2

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #101 on: May 26, 2022, 06:38:33 PM »
Its that time of the year again.. might have a winner with this unknown black fruited seedling!

Got this one from a buddy in 2020 so maybe I'll name if after him, he doesn't know the original source but it grew extremely vigorously for me and throughout winter as well.

I should note that microclimate shenanigans are in play ;D.

Really happy so far with this seedling, I believe this is the first time it properly set and ripened some fruit, under 4 years old and great flower to fruit set ratio with no other surinams nearby.

These fruits ripened this week, brix ranging from 16 to almost 19, some more heat could result in a 20. This is much sweeter than my grafted blackstar, however, my blackstar only gets morning sun whereas the balcony the seedling is grown at gets afternoon sun only.







The most recent brix I measured from fruits of this seedling was 22.8!

Jaboticaba45

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #102 on: May 28, 2022, 07:01:40 PM »



Hitting 20+ with them. Over the course of the last week or so over 5 people tried them and the best remark I got was “Interesting”.
But my friend came again today and said he likes them if they are good…the fruit quality varies so much!!!some brix was only 8!!

seng

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #103 on: May 29, 2022, 01:42:07 AM »
I just got some cuttings today.  The fruits are big, good flesh ratio, sweet and tangy.  I also get  cuttings of colossus variety; the the mother tree was just flower, but the flowers are huge compare to other variety.  The owner said that the fruits were large as well.

Top view. The fruit on the left is the one mentioned above. There were bigger and darker ones that I did not take the picture. The one on the right is from my own tree.  Size compare to a quarter. 



Side view:


MasonG31

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #104 on: May 29, 2022, 11:28:58 PM »
This is an awesome thread everyone!  Thanks for the input and knowledge.  Does anyone have any experience growing Surinam Cherry trees from Exotica Nursery in Vista, Ca?  I know they’re seedlings.  I believe I got one called San Diego Red and another called Chamba.  They’re in the ground and growing well and flowered for the first time this year.

socalbalcony2

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #105 on: May 30, 2022, 01:25:35 PM »
This is an awesome thread everyone!  Thanks for the input and knowledge.  Does anyone have any experience growing Surinam Cherry trees from Exotica Nursery in Vista, Ca?  I know they’re seedlings.  I believe I got one called San Diego Red and another called Chamba.  They’re in the ground and growing well and flowered for the first time this year.

Yes, plenty of people are growing seedlings from exotica, results may vary in terms of fruit quality, could get a winner, average, or below average (just like any other source).

ScottR

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #106 on: May 31, 2022, 10:46:35 AM »
I have a fruiting 'Chamba' variety they are very good IMO some years plenty other years shy but tasty variety.

MasonG31

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #107 on: June 01, 2022, 08:50:29 PM »
Has anyone harvested any Zill’s Dark fruit here in SoCal?  Care to comment on the flavor?  How long did it take to produce fruit?  This thread is awesome, by the way.

FMfruitforest

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #108 on: June 10, 2022, 07:05:09 AM »
Introducing “ Ruby Grapefruit” Surinam, out of eight fruiting seedling trees I have one of decent eating quality that to me taste has balanced flavor resemblance of “ruby” grapefruit.
 This may be a common flavor profile among some varieties of Surinam.


Kevin Jones

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #109 on: June 10, 2022, 06:43:39 PM »
That sound right...
The best reds I have tasted did indeed have a citrus type flavor.

Kevin


K-Rimes

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #110 on: June 10, 2022, 07:13:33 PM »
This is an awesome thread everyone!  Thanks for the input and knowledge.  Does anyone have any experience growing Surinam Cherry trees from Exotica Nursery in Vista, Ca?  I know they’re seedlings.  I believe I got one called San Diego Red and another called Chamba.  They’re in the ground and growing well and flowered for the first time this year.

I have several plants from them, Lolita, Chamba, and Vermillion that are now in 7.5g square pots. The Lolitas have been failures all around for me (it grew really fast and is in a 25 gallon) it got up to 7' tall and it flowered decently but never set fruit year in year out, even with cross pollination and even hand pollination. I stumped it and grafted Zill's on it from a FL source. I left one small branch to the side of the original Lolita to give it another chance but I am doubtful it ever will. The Zill's graft is doing nice and has flowered before but no sets.

The Chambas have been getting hammered by either a fungal issue, or thrips or something. The leaves have this sort of micro hail damage look all over. Regardless of fungicides and imidacloprid, or frequent sprays with Neem, Insecticidal soap, you name it and still the same. I fear it will pass into my other productive pitangas but seems to be kind of localized to just a few. An Argentinian seedling I have from Marcos has the same issues but not quite as bad. I don't know what to do about it. SoCalBalcony suggests that maybe I'm over fertilizing so I'm going to give that a break and properly ignore them for awhile.

MasonG31

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #111 on: November 26, 2022, 08:44:57 PM »
I like this thread a lot so I’ll keep it going.  I finally got to try the Zill Dark Surinam Cherry.  I grafted this variety onto a seedling I got from Exotica Nursery.  Grafts were done in April 2021, and the fruits ripened up in September 2022.  Tree is still young (about 3 feet tall) but I still got about 8 fruits.  These were delicious, juicy, and addictive.  No gasoline aftertaste at all.  Definitely a keeper.






SHV

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #112 on: November 26, 2022, 11:23:59 PM »
The Zill dark looks pretty tasty, although I find the petrol taste unique and somewhat addicting.  I have a Lolita seedling that is about 3-4 years old and pumps out a ton of fruit.   I noticed the darker (riper?) they get, the less gasoline aftertaste is detectable. The fruit will hang until it turns purple and starts to shrivel a bit. At that point it’s like a super sweet tart cherry with no aftertaste.  Here are some pictures of the Lolita fruit at different stages. Small but delicious!





mikesid

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #113 on: November 27, 2022, 10:59:28 AM »
 
 I fruited a couple 'Regina' seedlings. I got seeds from MiguelPt several years ago. They are best uniflora I've had. No resinous flavor at all and sweet. Mine hasnt had a lot of flowers but I just popped it in the ground so maybe it will improve flowering. I'll try to remember to get a brix on next fruit.
















MasonG31

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #114 on: December 15, 2022, 10:54:17 AM »
The Zill dark looks pretty tasty, although I find the petrol taste unique and somewhat addicting.  I have a Lolita seedling that is about 3-4 years old and pumps out a ton of fruit.   I noticed the darker (riper?) they get, the less gasoline aftertaste is detectable. The fruit will hang until it turns purple and starts to shrivel a bit. At that point it’s like a super sweet tart cherry with no aftertaste.  Here are some pictures of the Lolita fruit at different stages. Small but delicious!





Wow it’s really encouraging to hear you’re getting lots of fruit from a 3 to 4 year old seedling.  Is yours in the ground or in a container?  I’ve planted a bunch of Surinam Cherry seedlings all over my place.  They’re around 2 years old or less. 

MasonG31

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #115 on: December 15, 2022, 11:00:35 AM »

 I fruited a couple 'Regina' seedlings. I got seeds from MiguelPt several years ago. They are best uniflora I've had. No resinous flavor at all and sweet. Mine hasnt had a lot of flowers but I just popped it in the ground so maybe it will improve flowering. I'll try to remember to get a brix on next fruit.
















That fruit looks great.  How long did your seedlings take to begin fruiting?  I’ve heard of the Regina before.  Hope Miguel still sends seeds.

SHV

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #116 on: December 15, 2022, 11:18:51 PM »
I plant my Surinams in the ground after 1 year old. They really take off if planted in full sun and fertilized a couple times a year.

persie

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #117 on: December 16, 2022, 02:00:46 AM »
XI-6 cl selection of INIA Uruguay
sweet and sour taste like eating a tangerine and no resinous taste

not my tree




Satya

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #118 on: December 18, 2022, 08:46:40 PM »
Last fall I order a large quantity of these plastic air layering balls on ebay:



Thought I'd give them a try...

Kevin


We tried the smaller ball and it failed in 100% of air layers :( even on species that layer willingly. though my air layer success normally is pretty high. I saw larger ones on Amazon but decided to continue the old fashioned way.

Satya, those balls worked for me super well. I got 100% successful air layers from them so far but you have to control the soil moisture carefully because of the openings on the top and bottom for the small and medium size and the large size has additional openings on the sides. I’ve had success using all three sizes.

I’ve been air layering for quite a long time and the traditional method takes longer but doesn’t require as much up keep because everything is sealed up and there is little moisture loss. With the traditional method, the initial watering is usually enough to get the air layer through till harvesting/removing from the tree.

These new air layering balls are faster but not for those that don’t have time to check up on the condition of the soil inside.

On hot days, the smaller balls can dry up very quickly.

I moisten to field capacity for the initial fill and then re water once soil moisture is about 20-30% approximately.

Here’s an air layer I recently removed


This is the smallest size.

Simon


Hi Simon, sorry didn't see your answer until now! Wow that is a nice root ball! Yes I noticed they dry up too fast, and had no time to moisten them, that's the reason mine failed and that's the reason I stopped using them. I travel a lot so cannot consistently tend to them unfortunately.
As for Suriname cherries, I have one seedling tree that outperforms every other one I have; the fruit is very sweet with less acidity than a typical Suriname cherry and less gasoline flavor; Zill dark are much tarter in my garden, I have maybe 10 trees and this one is sweeter/larger/juicier than Zill's. It's orangish-pink in color and has a very distinct long neck. I shared seeds with many friends, hope someone grew them to see whether these qualities persist. Let me find a photo...

Satya

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #119 on: December 18, 2022, 09:12:24 PM »
here are my Zill Dark vs my unnamed pink seedling. Also, the pink seedling fruits several times a year; Zill twice a year.










Midwestfruitjungle

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #120 on: December 21, 2022, 09:40:27 AM »
Does the aroma of the crushed leaves indicate the resin flavor intensity? I had 2 pitangas with one that had very resinous smelling leaves and the other with no leaf smell. The resinous leaf died, and I still have the non-resinous smelling one. Neither fruited, though I am expecting fruit from the one I have this year.

fliptop

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #121 on: December 21, 2022, 03:57:56 PM »
Here are Suriname Cherries from a Zill's Dark Seedling (seed from achetadomestica). The taste is on par with Zill's Dark (read: yummy), though the cherries on my grafted Zill's Dark aren't ripe yet, so I can't do a side-by-side comparison. The deep ribs make me want to call this tree "McRibs".



MasonG31

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #122 on: December 26, 2022, 11:13:50 AM »
Does the aroma of the crushed leaves indicate the resin flavor intensity? I had 2 pitangas with one that had very resinous smelling leaves and the other with no leaf smell. The resinous leaf died, and I still have the non-resinous smelling one. Neither fruited, though I am expecting fruit from the one I have this year.

I believe it does, at least in my experience.  Some of my seedlings have really strong, resinous tasting fruit, and similarly their leaves also have a powerful resinous smell when crushed.  My sweet tasting Pitanga fruits have leaves with just a whiff of resin, not much.  The Zill Dark’s leaves have little to no resin smell at all, and that’s the sweetest Pitanga I’ve tasted so far. 

gnappi

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #123 on: December 26, 2022, 01:54:06 PM »
I personally can't stand them and I'd have rather eaten a few puke flavored papaya. That was BEFORE my neighbor grabbed a few deep black samples from his yard and asked me to try them. I gotta say at least from HIS bush, I'd rather eat his Surinam cherry than a puke  flavored papaya :-)

It's not saying much but the possibility of a dessert Surinam is still a dim possibility.

Regards,

   Gary

Flgarden

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Re: Hunt for the best Surinam Cherry
« Reply #124 on: December 26, 2022, 01:56:15 PM »
I have a dark one from zills and it's very good. I could eat a plate of those.
Ana