Author Topic: Cherimoya bonanza  (Read 828 times)

Plantinyum

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Cherimoya bonanza
« on: March 05, 2023, 07:01:47 AM »
Cherimoya season here in Bulgaria is in full swing haha 😂
Ive been harvesting the fruits of my 2 greenhouse  plants for a week or so. I was puzzled at first as to when to harvest, but think i found the best way that works for me, i bagged the fruit with organza bags, tied them to the branches. Now as the fruit ripens they stay for the longest possibl2 on the trees, i just inspect them each other day for softeness, by the time they are soft they have been separated from the stem end and i just untie the organza bags and harvest. Then i leave them for several days to ripen further, i found that they are very good tasting when they have that watter soaked look to the skin, as like they were frozen and thawed.  I will try to leave some of them to ripen further to see if they become better.
Taste profile is sweet, standard cherimoya taste, cant really find difference compared to the very good ones i sometimes find in the store, thought most of those are not as tasty as my homegrown ones. The smell of the fruits strangely enough reminds me of maybe dark chocolate.  The size of the fruits is satisfactory, although i think with some heavier thinning there is place for improvement.
Overall first cherimoya fruits ,from seedling plants ,took 5 years, it was wort it! Both of them have nice flavoured fruit.
One drawback is, they are quite seedy.





shot

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Re: Cherimoya bonanza
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2023, 07:55:12 AM »
Wow just wow,that's fantastic!

JCorte

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Re: Cherimoya bonanza
« Reply #2 on: March 05, 2023, 08:44:54 AM »
Congratulations!  Your fruit looks great! 

Janet
« Last Edit: March 05, 2023, 10:13:39 AM by JCorte »

johnb51

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Re: Cherimoya bonanza
« Reply #3 on: March 05, 2023, 10:11:37 AM »
That's pretty cool.  8)
John

elouicious

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Re: Cherimoya bonanza
« Reply #4 on: March 05, 2023, 11:54:47 AM »
Way to go Platinyum!

Plantinyum

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Re: Cherimoya bonanza
« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2023, 12:07:12 PM »
Thanks for the kind words ! With cherimoya being my favorite fruit, i am happy that i finally have some homegrown ones to enjoy, i really would prefer a cherimoya as a dessert over anything else.

Tropicaltoba

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Re: Cherimoya bonanza
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2023, 02:04:38 PM »
Cool, very jealous. I’ve never been able to find one to taste in Canada. I just started mine from seed 2 years ago. I looked for years but I couldn’t get cultivars this far North. Is it the same requirements as sugar apple? What size of container did you use? Also when did it start flowering and how big is it now? Any other tips/tricks?

Plantinyum

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Re: Cherimoya bonanza
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2023, 04:49:38 PM »
Cool, very jealous. I’ve never been able to find one to taste in Canada. I just started mine from seed 2 years ago. I looked for years but I couldn’t get cultivars this far North. Is it the same requirements as sugar apple? What size of container did you use? Also when did it start flowering and how big is it now? Any other tips/tricks?

dont really know how cherimoya compares to sugar apple, ive heard that cherimoya is the easier to grow from the two. The plants were grown for the first 2-3 years in pots progressing in size, the final one was like a  20 liter bucket. I planted them inground in the greenhouse, 2 summers ago, they flowered for the first time last winter. This summer i trigerred them to flower by leaf stripping and pruning in july, they flowered trought August and i hand pollinated every single flower.
I have pruned them alot of times, i am actually wating on the fruits to all ripen now so i can prune once again and leaf strip, i hope to trigger an early blooming. They are hitting the top of the greenhouse now at around 2.5 meters.
I am still learning how to grow them as succesfully as i can, dont have the experience to have my own special tips regarding growing. I may have just one such, havent seen someone else doing it but for just a few plants like i have, bagging the fruit keeps it safe from falling and destroing itself, theres also the benefit of it hanging on the tree for the longest so it probably sweetens more. I found thet the fruit ripens fine ,even if the core pulls out, i did had just a little mold on one fruit but really not bag when i expected them holes to be full of mold in a day. Also you may want to be carefull with neem oil around your cherimoya, i burned mine exactly when they started setting fruit and now the fruit has those scars from the neem, it burned some of them quite bad, along with some of the leaves.

brian

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Re: Cherimoya bonanza
« Reply #8 on: March 05, 2023, 09:39:32 PM »
Very nice harvest.   I am jealous, I have a large in-ground grafted cherimoya but I have yet to get a single fruit to set.  I flowers a lot and I have been hand-pollinating them when I feel like it but I am lazy and probably not doing it right.  Meanwhile my container atemoya produces fine.  I am thinking of replacing the cherimoya with the atemoya (or topworking various annonas onto it) simply because hand pollinating is a chore. 

I just want to try the fruit first once before I give up on it.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2023, 09:41:11 PM by brian »

Plantinyum

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Re: Cherimoya bonanza
« Reply #9 on: March 06, 2023, 01:50:25 AM »
Very nice harvest.   I am jealous, I have a large in-ground grafted cherimoya but I have yet to get a single fruit to set.  I flowers a lot and I have been hand-pollinating them when I feel like it but I am lazy and probably not doing it right.  Meanwhile my container atemoya produces fine.  I am thinking of replacing the cherimoya with the atemoya (or topworking various annonas onto it) simply because hand pollinating is a chore. 

I just want to try the fruit first once before I give up on it.
Stange, does  your plant set initionally ,but later aborts the fruit? Or it doesnt set at all? When i hand pollinated mine, i did it every day around 4-5 pm, thats when the new flowers were opening as females. I think you may want to try harder at hand pollination, i doubt that mine would set anything without me pollinating.

Oolie

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Re: Cherimoya bonanza
« Reply #10 on: March 06, 2023, 08:07:50 AM »
Very nice harvest.   I am jealous, I have a large in-ground grafted cherimoya but I have yet to get a single fruit to set.  I flowers a lot and I have been hand-pollinating them when I feel like it but I am lazy and probably not doing it right.  Meanwhile my container atemoya produces fine.  I am thinking of replacing the cherimoya with the atemoya (or topworking various annonas onto it) simply because hand pollinating is a chore. 

I just want to try the fruit first once before I give up on it.
Fruit can vary greatly year to year. I found a tree on a property that was basically sticks (mature tree, but not watered for years), after applying water and fertilizer, it began growing vigorously, and fruiting well. The fruit quality was very poor for 5 years or so, soft, insipid flesh, with flavor that was difficult to appreciate. You could tell the fruit was ripening on the tree much before it was ready (dull skinned).

The last couple years, the fruit has been superb, comparable to Honeyhart, though smaller, it has good flesh/seed ratio, excellent bubblegum type flavor, and thick texture. But you can tell the tree is holding them until they're ready.

Point is it can take a few crops to produce representative fruit.

Plantinyum

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Re: Cherimoya bonanza
« Reply #11 on: March 06, 2023, 08:52:56 AM »
Oolie, thanks for the heads-up up! My fruit is very good on the first year of fruiting, at least by my standards and limited cherimoya taste experiences(cultivars).
If they improve over time its just a plus !

brian

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Re: Cherimoya bonanza
« Reply #12 on: March 06, 2023, 10:03:07 AM »
Stange, does  your plant set initionally ,but later aborts the fruit? Or it doesnt set at all? When i hand pollinated mine, i did it every day around 4-5 pm, thats when the new flowers were opening as females. I think you may want to try harder at hand pollination, i doubt that mine would set anything without me pollinating.

The flowers just fall off, zero fruitlets.  Almost certainly lack of pollination for me