The Tropical Fruit Forum

You could attach a hose end sprayer to the sprinkler head. Not sure how well they draw up liquid if the hose is running for just a couple of seconds.

The bokashi leachate I get from my indoor fruit peel composter is a great liquid fertillizer but it has a a very strong kombucha type smell that is hard to get off your skin. It is also used as fertillizer so if you had it in your sprinkler to are just “feeding the soil” as opposed to “assaulting your enemies”.

In New Zealand they use it as hedgerows. It’s cool that it can be bird pollinated.

Also if your pots are on a hard surface the water may not drain through the bottom very well. For my citrus in large pots (hate wet feet) I have large holes drilled in the side right at the base. To stop soil from pouring out I place a handfull of shredded cedar in front of the holes before I fill my pots with soil.

I know you aren’t supposed to do this, but I do have a couple of plants that do have saucers that they sit in, but they suck up the water within 6 hours after watering. Guava, jaboticaba, passionfruit and loquat work well with saucers for me (2” deep for a 30” tall pot). Citrus, cherimoya, mango do terrible.

Brian, lol I didn’t have my glasses on I thought that was a scale. There is a similar native one called a “twice stabbed” lady beetle that does is red scale and other pests . I collected a bunch of these a few years ago off my infested citrus when I used to take them outside. I was unsuccessful in keeping a population in my tiny gh over winter.

There is a lot of work going on with “integrated pest management” and agriculture (both indoors and out). It can be a bit of a rabbit hole once you start doing some reading. It’s based off sound experimental science, but starts to get a little pseudo-scientific when people apply it in practice.

It may be worthwhile to look at developing a insecticide free native habitat around your greenhouse so that during the summer native beneficial insects like the “twice stabbed” can help keep pests under control during the peak growing months. Spot treatments with oil and soap are still ok, but you may want to be selective with systemics.

Brian, if the tree is dense with scale a single spray doesn’t work for me. That’s why I blast first with  a hose if it’s bad (hasn’t been in a while) and then use the 1%. When I spray everything gets covered, I spray in the evening or when I know it’s cloudy all day and I have had no issues with toxicity to the plants.

I think millet has lots of experience with this, I followed his advice.

Used them before in my greenhouse worked well, just gets pricey. Biggest thing for gh is proper humidity and temp, that has worked the best.

I don’t know about the genetics, but I can tell you from a flowering standpoint, if you grow it from a cutting it’ll flower as early as 4 months.

I have no insects in my greenhouse, any tricks with hand pollinating longan?

How about a true mangosteen, this sounds like the perfect environment?

Cattley guava is bonzaiable, pretty with peeling bark and glossy foliage, greenhouse pest immune and fruits and flowers continuously. The fruit is superior to ruby supreme guava, but in my opinion that doesn’t mean much.

Only problem is Caribbean fruit fly which lays maggots in the fruit. I don’t know much about the habitat in which it grows. It I know it is an issue for some parts of Florida.

Is your room isolated from outside? I think it would be worth to try.

It all depends on how committed you are. The English used to overwinter them in hot compost bins. I haven’t gone through the old threads but perhaps someone has tried.

I had the same dilemma a couple of years ago. Luckily for me I had 2 young 2.5ft tall potted Pickering. It did eventually produce a full sized and delicious fruit. I really haven’t noticed much difference between the growth habit of the one which bore the fruit and the one that didn’t. They grow really slow in containers.