Luc's Mexican Garcinia growing experiences around the world

[cbss_daviefl]

My trees are flowering like crazy now. Unfortunately, I still do not get fruit in quantities that the trees should be producing. The trees are over 10 years old and have been flowering for 5+ years.

I grafted a tree two years ago from a seedling tree that flowers are almost all male.  The first small set of flowers from the scion were mostly female. There were maybe a dozen flowers and only three or four were males. The little tree did set some fruit so its hard to complain.  However, I have three large trees that are female that need pollen so I was expecting the grafted tree to flower like its donor parent.

Click on the photos to see the flowering

[Mike T]

My male tree flowers several times a year. My bisex 2 trees are frequent flowerers and have smallish thin skinned often green fruit but in small numbers reflective of the small proportion of female flowers. At around 10 years old now 3 female trees I shared around have flowered sparingly but set good sized orange fruit with a different taste. I have a couple of jumbos that should be getting close to flowering now.

[nofspeppers]

Here’s my biggest seedling (seeds from Raul) Luc’s Jumbo. Anyone else grab seeds this summer or before and would like to share the status of theirs? Would love to compare

[Mike T]

I have a jumbo seedling with 2 flower buds on it and it looks like it will be a girl. My bisex and male trees have smaller flowers and my friend's female has large flowers. The female flowers on a female tree are bigger than female flowers on a bisex tree

[kalan]

So my first decent sized crop of Luc's was coloring up this week. This morning I found about a half dozen or so fruit on the ground. See the pics. No animal sign, may have been caused by the heavy rain yesterday, but either way they look partially ripe and were perhaps ready to fall. I still have 2-3 on the tree ripening up hopefully) to a more solid orange.

Question for Brandon and anyone else who has been through this: will these continue to ripen anymore off the tree? Is this actually an ideal coloration for harvest? I read here that the more orange, most likely the sweeter. Just wondering if I should cut into these as they still seem a bit firm. What do you think - leave them on the counter for another day or two?

[cbss_daviefl]

Below are some pictures of my fruits from a few days ago. Color is less of an indicator than firmness. I have a big fruit on one tree that has been full yellow for a few weeks but still hard.

They do continue to ripen and they will soften. The skin will get a paper-like texture and difficult to cut slicing with a smooth blade, easier with a serrated knife.

Fully ripe, they will be very sweet. Just under ripe, they will be sweet-sour, which is what I prefer. If they are very firm, a day or two may be all they need. I try to wait until they are soft in 1/3rd or half and still firm in other areas to keep some sour flavor. 

[kalan]

Below are some pictures of my fruits from a few days ago. Color is less of an indicator than firmness. I have a big fruit on one tree that has been full yellow for a few weeks but still hard.

They do continue to ripen and they will soften. The skin will get a paper-like texture and difficult to cut slicing with a smooth blade, easier with a serrated knife.

Fully ripe, they will be very sweet. Just under ripe, they will be sweet-sour, which is what I prefer. If they are very firm, a day or two may be all they need. I try to wait until they are soft in 1/3rd or half and still firm in other areas to keep some sour flavor.

alright I held back with the knife for at least another day or so. I'm ganna space them out to try at different ripeness levels. I'll let you know how the tasting goes. Thanks for the info. Brandon.

[Lumi-Ukko]

It's been a while since Luc posted here. I'd love to source a Garcinia Mexicana tree (preferably) or seed. Being also in Mexico it should not be too much of a hassle to arrange that, I would think.

Luc (or anyone else in Mexico), if you see this, please respond or PM on how I might be abke to purchase the aforementioned tree or seeds!

Many thanks in advance!
Peter

[Mike T]

They seem to have either bright yellow/orange shiny fruit or dull olive mat skinned fruit. My jumbo flowers both turned to fruit and flowers were bigger than on my other trees. My 2 bisex ones put on a flowering show several times a year and only a few fruit set as only about 2% of flowers are female. My male one is a 4m tall tree now I chopped the top and it has been flowering for nearly 10 years. I have been debating whether to chop it out completely.

[Stevo]

First fruit from my 10 year old unamed variety tree .It has only ever had female / hermaphradite flowers and considering
the fruit size we could probably call it a jumbo variety

[barath]

I'm considering planting my biggest Mexican Garcinia that's been in a #15 pot for something like 8 years. It's mostly been in partial shade/partial sun for this time. For Southern California, what's the right microclimate for a tree of this age -- morning sun / afternoon shade? Does it need full day sun to fruit eventually?

[MarktLee]

Barath,

My grafted Luc's to Imbe is a bit shaded by a Chico and Longan which forces the Luc's to grow very tall. It has never had any cold damage. The ones I have in pots also do fine in the semi shade and shade. They just need to slowly move out into the full sun.

[barath]

Barath,

My grafted Luc's to Imbe is a bit shaded by a Chico and Longan which forces the Luc's to grow very tall. It has never had any cold damage. The ones I have in pots also do fine in the semi shade and shade. They just need to slowly move out into the full sun.

Thanks Mark. I'll see if I can find a spot that's partially shaded. Like you I've never seen any cold damage on it, but have once in a while seen sun scorch on young seedlings.

[Mike T]

I have another tree with a single flower after recovering from insect attack. It looks like I have 2 hermaphrodites, a female jumbo, a female standard, a male and a jumbo yet to reveal its sex.

[Acacia]

I have another tree with a single flower after recovering from insect attack. It looks like I have 2 hermaphrodites, a female jumbo, a female standard, a male and a jumbo yet to reveal its sex.

Have you had much success setting fruit on these in Cairns Mike?

[roblack]

Happy to report success in grafting 2 scions of Luc's hermaphrodite onto 2 Luc's seedlings (100% success if they hold, have consistently failed with garcinias in past):







Upon visiting, a forum friend found my chip clip grafting tek peculiar =)   ....got some clothespins now, but thinking of sticking with the chip clips!

A bit surprised to see a bloom poking out of one of them. These grafts were done around June 5th of this year.

Big shout out to forum member docky for the fresh and choice scions! Woohoo!

[FRUITBOXHERO]

I bought seeds in 2012, and this is the first year my tree is flowering and holding fruit. The question I have is how long until the fruit ripens and how I will know when to pick them.
Can anyone give me a taste/texture profile?
VERY EXCITED!

[cbss_daviefl]

They take around 5 months. They can be ripe with 50% color but fully colored fruit sometimes need to hang for a few weeks. They will soften when ready. I enjoy them most when they are a bit underripe, soft in spots and slightly firm in other. At this stage, the flavors are strong and there is a mix of pineapple, passionfruit and lemon flavors, sweet and sour. When fully ripe, the fruit are sweet and the flavor mellows.  They continue to ripen after dropping/picking but I feel better picking when at the desired ripeness.

[FRUITBOXHERO]

Thank you.

[Lumi-Ukko]

The two G.Mexicana saplings I got shipped from Raul both perished (a slow die back until they succumbed). Not sure what I did wrong with them as the other Garcinia species I spurced from Raul and elsewhere are doing ok to very well. I'll try to get some more from Raul and try again. I hate failing lol

[Orkine]

Fruit from a grafted limb.  The scion sourced years ago from Raul

[BestDay]

How about a flavor report?!?

[wiestyfbaby]

Hello! I just got one of Luc's Mexican Garcinia from the legendary Ong Nursery in SD.

The plant is only like 2 feet tall and is already 6+ years old; so I'm expecting some very slow growth!

Has anyone managed to uncover some secrets for growing this plant (especially in SoCal)?

I'm planning to keep it in a large container in nearly full shade (with some dappled sun). But, I would love to hear any and all suggestions

Thanks!

[Nick C]

Graft I did earlier in the year finally pushed some leaves

[NatureBoy]

For those with fruiting Luc's garcinia, how "true to seed" are they?
Does each seedling generally resemble it's parents, or is each and every plant a roll of the dice?

I've got some "regular" Luc's seedlings around two years old.   
For the most part - they look very similar to each another, I could pick them all out of a lineup.
I'm sprouting more varieties (Lucs, Jumbo, Orangey, Jumbo Sugar, Fuyu) recently sourced from Raul.

But what about fruit?   
Do the Jumbos make Jumbos, do the Orangey make Orangey, etc.?

As I'm putting plants in the ground, I'm wondering if I should overplant.
That would allow me to keep only the best examples, weeding out anything sub-standard.

Thoughts?