The Tropical Fruit Forum

If you pinch off that single branching growth, chances are that the tree will respond with multiple branches.

Farms in Thailand.

Anybody familiar with this Zill selection?  A buddy has this, but I cannot find any info on this.

Hey Eggo dude!  How ya been?  I brought:  Creme Brulee, Lemon Meringue, Fruit Punch, M4.  I also brought a bunch of cuttings of other varieties that I grafted onto some large seedling trees after arrival.  All were pushing growth just fine and then I made a newbie mistake.  Got impatient and tossed some fertilizer on them and moved them into more sun.  All a little too soon and the fertilizer turned out to be a lot hotter than I anticipated.  Lost every single one, must have been 8-10, except for a sugarloaf.  The graft was failing, but the scion still had some juice left.  I was able to successfully graft it onto another seedling.  About a month ago, the Creme Brulee just up and died on me.  No idea why, but sure does piss me off.  The M4 and Sugarloaf are doing fantastic.  The Lemon Meringue and Fruit Punch seem to be struggling for some reason.  Going to try and get a bunch more sent over in a few months.

Mike...not sure if you've kept up with any of my madness for the past year, but the wait was necessary.  Lots of soil amendments and mound building.  Loads of fun.

Yes, one of them is Kradum.  The other they call Grandma Prang...supposedly another small-fruited variety.  These are both old-time varieties that are really good, but just not hyped like the others.
All depends upon whether a couple other varieties are obtained.  The grandma prang may end up grafted onto a new one.  I liked the kradum over anything else we had at the markets.  I'm trying to find an orange-fleshed graveolens, but it is proving impossible to find here in Thailand.  You know someone is growing it...just got to find them!  The other one I do have a shot at getting is the Rainbow durian...or Pelangi.  The guy brought it back from Malaysia bare rooted and is waiting for it to recover completely.  The only tree to survive out of the four he brought back.  If I do get it, I will graft the monthongs onto this one.

This is a great video on grafting very very young durian.  I cannot understand what the guy is saying, but you can easily infer. 

It is also a good example showing how tough these young seedlings are and how rough they are treated, including having nearly all of their roots removed.  Yet they thrive.  If anyone knows why they remove so much of the roots, please explain.  So if you have a bunch of seedlings to experiment with and access to fresh scions, this would be a great experiment to perform.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr9Smt3yJsA&t=1s

Received a box of pulasan today.  First time trying pulasan from Thailand.  The larger and darker pieces tasted much better and gave me a small reminder of the awesome fruits we had in Puerto Rico. 

I understand that the farms need to pick all they can, when they can, but I would have preferred that the fruit had been allowed to stay on the tree to get darker, sweeter, and develop more complex flavors.  This fruit is normally much better than the best rambutan.  No contest in my opinion.  I think these could have been better if on the tree longer.  PR fruit definitely better, but we got to pick and eat those right at their peak.  That's hard to beat.  But now I have a shit ton of seeds to plant for grafting and other experiments!  Got another box ordered coming from a different farm.  Supposed to be bigger fruit and hopefully kept on the trees a bit longer.

Durian note??  I like durian, but that would be the last thing I would want in a mango!

I agree with Peter on all his points.  I've witnessed first hand grafted trees versus seedling trees and there is just no contest.  These trees were at Ian Crown's farm in PR.  Same age or older grafted trees were much much smaller than seedling trees.  They also fall way short on production versus seedlings.  Grafted trees much older than some of the seedlings still cannot compete.  Don't get me wrong...they were all lovely trees.  Their shapes were very nice, very short, round, compact, and I don't believe ever have been pruned...a perfect option for a backyard or greenhouse.  I just don't think they are a winner for a farm.

As for grafting, here in the Asian countries, it looks like they only graft onto mangosteen.  Probably don't figure it worth the risk of any delayed compatibility issues.  The goal is to get fruit on the tree as soon as possible.  This is what gets people excited and makes the sale...even though the tree might only put out 1-3 fruit for several years.  I'm sure it also is plays a role in why the tree is normally so stunted.  Would I have purchased one if available when I had the greenhouse?  Damn right I would!  If someone made these available to people in the states, at a reasonable price, they'd make a killing.  For those doing their own grafting, if you can get the scions, graft away on any garcinia you can.  You might come up with a winner...but hedge yer bets and have some nice mangosteen seedlings available too.

This was my Luc's grafted onto Imbe.  Probably 7' wide and 10' high in this pic.  Did incredibly well on Imbe.  The Imbe was an old, very large tree that I cut back and grafted onto.  The Luc's spread in all directions and needed pruned often in order to keep it off the glass and to give room to walk past.  Unfortunately we moved before it started blooming.

Very nice!  Really early.  I don't think most will be ready till end of July.

True...most things started flowering in late winter, very early spring.  Ants did most of the pollination for achachairu...if it even needs it.  The gold nugget jack was just a poor performer for me and we did not like the soft flesh when it did fruit.

Finding plants has always been difficult to impossible.  Even seeds are very hard to obtain...just keep an eye open for Hawaii suppliers.