The Tropical Fruit Forum

A bit like keeping penguins in Sudan and it makes for hard work. The quality of light, water and soil as well as temperature fluctuations, life in the soil and many other aspects might not be ideal even before thinking about watering frequency. 

Red prawns can handle cooler weather but over here they are very shy bearers and mine has been on thin ice for a while. Penang 88 also won honours at Penang but neither can match a good gumpun or monthong in my opinion. Out of that lot I would say Chanee is under rated and has many positive attributes.

Heya Jose my old chum Mike Prociv has had a long and winding road with DR and forgotten more than I ever knew. I am not a fan of reds and especially whites that are bland without a good melon or grape taste or are not sweet. I like to line up a whole lot at once and compare them rather than rely on my memory. I ditched the light producers and ones that aren't self fertile also. i hung on to 2 called palmerston purple and colombian red as they are great for taste, big and productive. And I digress.
I tried Mike Prociv's Palora x Vietnamese white (a big sweet white) and it made the grade alright and I took a cutting. One I called Mike P hybrid that was from memory something like a david bowie crossed with a good red that turned out white with pinkish in there and self fertile.....that was good. It didn't taste like a white. From memory I think israeli yellow x palora was good. I thinkj a frankie's red cross with a big purple flesh type was good also.

I wonder how many others went through phases with dragon fruit collecting. I must get desert king, american beauty, condor, david bowie,frankies red or pink panther...kinda thing. You get glamorous big purple fleshed ones and then they are not self fertile and the fruit are alright but not quite up to expectations and hardly bear at all. You turn to the best local types, big yellow colombians or even iraeli yellow. You then find nearby people have been crossing them and getting better ones than any of those.

At Cairns latitude 400m is ok as some durians fruit around Kuranda. I have heard of others between Kuranda and Mareeba and even on the Atherton Tableland in the towns above 750m but thought it was just loose talk amongst durian enthusiasts. kradum is the most likely I would have thought for that. The mention of Sunan brings back memories of sitting around Colin Gray's shed at Cape Trib swapping lies and tanking up on them. He claims he brought them to Australia and I know they hate the cold btw. I think cutting the taproot of papayas is great but not durian.

I couldn't find the pic anywhere but know theobromas pretty well and can ID at least 10 Terminalias.

When the Kamerunga Fruit Research Station obtained what were the leading varieties from India, Thailand, Philipines, Mexico and Florida in the 1980s I think 2 of each of around 30 varieties were planted out. They wanted to assess the commercial prospects of varieties with fruit quality, productivity, precocity and tree characteristics evaluated.
When funding ceased after over 100 years due to a change of government policy in 1994 that decided agricultural diversity is a bad idea the workers left suddenly and trees and current trials remained. I was stationed there from another govt dept briefly before the trees were flattened. Eerily there were cups still on tables and paperwork and stationery still on desks such was the haste of departure.
For as year or so I frolicked amongst the amazing assortment picking freely from a bounty best described in hushed tones outa respect.
The evaluations report on the sapodillas is now a foggy memory but no Indian type made the grade. All those with grit were removed, all the poor bearers were chopped and those with lesser flavour also went. Brown sugar,prolific, Williams, ponderosa, malano or mareno I can't remember all were removed and the last few varieties remained. Sawo manila, tropical, c56? and krasuey were amongst the top types. I tried them all the local Council who received the property chopped them all down. A decade late when I got my house I saw these same types all together in a nursery and realised not all was lost from kamerunga and bought 6 trees of 5 types and did my own elimination. I still have the winner and laugh at others who made bad sapodilla choices.

Fruit size varies a bit and big fruited types are more values of course. I planted 5 in a row about 15 years ago and they started fruiting at around 5 or 6 when about 2.5m high. 3 males and 2 females. I trimmed the males right back and they skipped flowering for 2 years but the females still pumped out the fruit like champs. One male grew back as a bisex and is becoming more female.

It is interesting when you see how contrasting foliage of fibreless and golden soursops are if the are growing near each other. The grey/blue tinge of the true fibreless selections' foliage is also quite striking. I have seedling whose grandmother was the original Whitman's Fibreless and it doesn't have the blue tinge.

Not sure about being smaller Cassowary. Russell Francis of Russel Sweet notoriety planted a golden soursop that is a whopper now and Colin Gray has a big tree.

I am the opposite and prefer keledang. Admittedly marangs have more variation and are actually 2 species and much bigger trees. I prefer the marangs from the Philippines.

Regardless of whether its a cross it looks good and is a real win. I don't think Berry is cross but I might look with a more critical eye next time I get the chance.

My one is as big as that and its first flowers didn't set. 

I have an E4 and standard z4 that are around 17 or 18 yo and a big fruited selection of Z4 about 10 or 11 years old. I have eaten a few of the bigger fruited pink starapple types and I think I prefer a good abiu but its a close call.