The Tropical Fruit Forum

Strong wind blow this off of PPK. Candy sweet with with a lemon twist. Having a fruit in May is extremely rare in Central Florida

In the words of John51 Oh so delicious!!

Galatians pickle worm took their pound of melon flesh but I have persevered. Cut back on the water had a good cantaloupe melon flavor. Not as intense as the Sangamon River Valley melons in Central Illinois. Going there next week to cut and rake hay with 2510 and 4440 John Deere. 🙂Will check on paw paw fruit set. 10-day forecast shows it'll be hot up there but shouldn't be too much shock to my system being  from Florida☀️

Mangoes melons and muscadines
Well burnt out on talking about mangoes but I had to put that in there so we don't get booted off The Tropical thread.
Having great success with Athens and lemonade cantaloupes. Have great anticipation for lemonade which it's description sounds like it's the sweet tart mango of the melon world. After i expanded my gravity flow vertical melon production this season. I'm having a great success with the canary honeydew melon and had great success last season with the snow leopard which my wife really liked. Start off by saying that Tomcat got rid of my long tail nibbling friend so things are copacetic now. I feel like the vines that are in the 25 gallon Nursery pots are thriving better than the ones in the growth bags so we'll convert those to Nursery pots next season. The reason for this thread is melon recommendations I'm not a watermelon fan but anything in the netted honeydew family or similar suggestions would be much appreciated. Since I've had abd seem to be having success. I've already planned to expand next season. So it seems as though I found ways to manage my two nemesis the pickle worm and the roof rat. Muscadines and muscadine hybrids are off to a good start. All I can say is grow grow grow🙂

The improved ruby red because of its thick skin it's not as susceptible to the Caribbean fruit fly. Had a Zill White Ultra sweet but it got wormy because of the Caribbean fruit flies. Had a dwarf ruby red type very good got replaced with a mango I believe it originated in Hawaii mature 6 ft tall 6 ft wide that came from

https://plantogram.com/product/guava_dwarf/

Yes my tropical Canary melons are starting to flower. Also snow leopard from Korea. Did not plant the Thailand long yellow but will next year. Strangely enough my mother-in-law lived close to the equator had a garden strange world. Wife just confirmed they grow watermelons in the Lesser Antilles Windward Islands

Canary yellow

Everything's going well Carrie is full of Bloom with a good male to female ratio. Even though dwarf Hawaiian is fully loaded somehow it's managed to bloom again. Recently with the talk of irrigation I decided to irrigate the VIP the very important pick tree's. Since I have plenty of extra Roto rain plus micro jet sprinklers. The ones I use for frost protection that put out approximately 3 gallons per minute. Instead of buying another batch of 50 was able to convert the jet size to a 1/16 drill bit. So on a few of them I was able to achieve 1 gallon per minute. So on the bigger mature trees I'm giving them about 60 gallons water twice a week











Carrie  13 April 25

Put a deposit on this dude for my nephew. He is heifer friendly

I believe there's an insinuation that Dr Campbell is being invited to speak at this convention or Festival
No I have not tasted lemonesh I will take Chris's word. I have been invited to the tasting table to try it but unlike the West Palm Beach garden gnome I'm camera shy. The biggest Factor the six-hour round Drive I'm just not doing that anymore. A fellow mango Enthusiast pick my tree up for me so unfortunate for that.
Brief description of the growth habit and production of the Lemonesh

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNXNAe2RGxI




I've been contemplating when to start spraying preventively for pickle worms

I like that idea better than gambling with my late trimming tactic. Going to be snapping off Sugar Loaf's early blooms next year (most, not all).

Have my fingers crossed

Some areas of florida have more disease pressure than others. For example, South Florida gets about twelve more inches of rain annually then in my area. I am sixty two feet above sea level, with silty Loam soil. That perks fairly well, never standing water. South Florida has Lime rocks bedrock with a few feet of sand. Not sure how that perks. I do receive ocean breezes around 2:00pm and I have fairly good air Circulation between the trees within the trees. With all that being said, after fruitset, and after fruitlets have got some size and are not as vulnerable to infections. I don't deem it necessary to spay during the summer. Others may not have that option. If you choose your varieties wisely. Such as disease resistance on the bloom. You will probably sleep a little better. Ppk over LZ

What mango should I grow?
 I've been thinking recently that there's a tree i personally don't care for the mango. With one phone call ican sell as many pounds as I can provide. It would be a real cash cow. That would be East Indian.

From now until June probably won't be much rain in Florida. Seems as though everyone has had good fruit set. Any one have a rule of thumb on this. I've heard of one gallon per foot of tree height once to twice a week. Seems like a good idea at least untiI they get some size to them.🙂

Adding irrigation to Pina Colada. Which has very good fruitset

Overhead frost irrigation taken down going to storage. I'm close enough to the end of the last frost date.

I found a really good Honey Gold to be about equal to a Kensington Pride, but from memory it was a little less tangy and Fibrous.
R2E2 I hate. I hate the texture, and I hate the flavour. It's got zero tang and low sweetness.
Calypso is like a Kensington but inferior to it in every way. Less tang, less sweetness, less flavour - but it did have more colour - not that it really matters to a homegrower.
Keitt is nearly as good as Kensington, and has a similar flavour, and starts fruiting (commercially) as soon as Kensingtons start to come to an end.
I like that new 'Maha Bliss', and I reckon it is equal, if not a teeny bit better (hate to admit it!) than KP.

What do you do you think of any Florida selections that you have tasted, Gone Tropo? Has your orange sherbet fruited?

I find it really interesting finding out about the difference in Mango preferences between Aussies and Americans. At the end of the day, I want to try as many interesting mangoes as I can, and if I don't like them I can just top work them (and grow more varieties!).
And interesting point: Could the reason that there have been so many mango varieties bred and introduced in Florida be that when mangoes first went commercial, people were dissatisfied with the Tommy Atkins, and wanted better mangoes, and that desire to breed better mangoes never faded? Here in Australia, from my understanding KP was the first commercial mango, and from the start people loved. Why breed tonnes of new varieties when you have already found 'the best'?

Hey mate I personally prefer calypso, R2E2 and certainly honey gold over KP taste is of course subjective.  My orange sherbert hasn't fruited yet and my lemon zest died.  The people I know who have tried these zill varieties and compared with KP are people with large mango collections who know there mangoes well and I trust what they say. I will however come to my own conclusion once my own trees come into production.

Maha is excellent, I have tried most of the older florida varieties that are here and i dislike all of them they all have a chemical/turpentine aftertaste that our aussie mango's don't have.  Our tastes seem to align much more with the SE asians.
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My daughter says maha is a after dinner mango. As far as asian mangos, my wife likes Keow Savoy I personally would take a philippine over a Nam doc mai. Okrung Is over poweringly sweet. Ican only eat a little bit. Would like to try Tong Dam. This is one of my favorite trees. I'll like it better than orange sherbert.Po Pyu Kalay was introduced to Florida from Myanmar by Maurice Kong

Quote from: Coconut Cream on March 04, 2025, 06:36:42 AM

See if you can find some Indonesian people in your area and find out where they get their mango trees. I would skip the old Australian varieties that everybody else in your area is growing - what's the point? The recent Zill varieties are mindblowing compared to the old school stuff named after people.

There is a huge cultural element that is not discussed on this forum, people have fruited some of these zill varieties here such as lemon zest and orange sherbert, fruit punch etc, when compared in a group side by side with KP nearly all still favour KP.  One guy I know was so disappointed with his fruit punch that he is cutting it out.

The Aussie mango's such as KP, Honey gold, Calypso, R2E2 etc have been selected with similar flavour to KP because that's what Aussies prefer.  Just because "experts" such as Alex and such don't rate KP or Aussie mangoes don't mean a thing, he also doesn't like Durian so that tells me all I need to know when listening to his taste recommendations.

In saying that I have an orange sherbert in my yard just to compare to local selections.  Mango is a large commercial operation in Australia with a lot of government input likely far exceeding anything happening in Florida. Whilst selections are made here for commercial purposes they are still excellent tasting.

They don't like spiders and snakes, but give them a Kingston Pride, and that's what it takes for a Aussie to love you.🙂
 If you ask a Jamaican, what is the best mango on this planet? They will tell you East Indian  No one else quite understands that answer but to them it makes perfect sense. Had a very nice Asian lady give me a huge Julie mango tree. She just doesn't like the taste. Some of my personal favorites are not Zill mangoes. As a collector if  you want to have the full spectrum of flavor profiles including Zill mangoes makes a lot of sense.

https://youtu.be/Je3EiwKArlQ?si=ZQUSgoPdAjGWQRCV



Chutney please

Quote from: bovine421 on February 26, 2025, 05:22:44 AM

After a cool all day rain Monday. I sprayed systemic frugicide to make sure  the friutlets do not get anthranose. I'll probably spray one more time according to my regiment, then not again until November.  Because the ground was saturated Coconut cream started leaning over to the west. Last hurricane season, the ground got so  saturated and with the strong wind from the east, completely fell over. Can see, this is going to be an on going problem with this tree. I have shaped the canopy very nicely. It has  wonderful fruit set  and after harvest, it's going to have  a severe pruning. Happy Mango mango🙂

Hmmmm, I wonder if you could inarch 3 mango seedlings planted in a triangle around the tree to brace it up. I have been thinking about this technique ever since the hurricanes. I noticed that banyan trees never blow over--no matter how strong the wind due to the aerial roots they grow that root into the ground and act as a brace. It would probably need staked until the graft unions fully healed.

In the short term, I just remembered how windy march can be. Probably take post hole diggers and maybe dig at a forty five degree angle, pointing away from the tree and put a 4×4 post In the ground. I'll have to invest in a heavier duty ratchet strap. Don't really like to do this because of fear of slipping the bark. Wrapped the tree With breathable trunk wrap Before I used a steel stake and lite duty ratchet strap. I had it fairly straight after the hurricane with stakes and straps. After several months I guess I got too optimistic and took the straps off. It was doing really well until the ground got so saturated over a long.of time.Fliptop may  need to number his seedlings before he runs out of names. Congratulations. fliptop The sweet deal mango🙂

4x4 post in the ground. Sounds like the beginnings of a grape arbor