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Messages - fruitnoob

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1
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Interest in Jackfruit on TFF
« on: March 26, 2024, 07:24:54 PM »
How is everyone’s jackfruit tree doing? I am loving mine. I can see 5 fist-sized fruits on the tree, and the tree gives a very pleasant aroma when I got close to it. The other day, I was looking for new female flowers on the jackfruit tree when there was a gust of wind. I looked up and the air was full of small yellow particles/pollen. Such a beautiful sight.
My wife already sewed 5 big bags to protect the jack fruits from squirrels. lol

Between my jackfruit and longan trees, part of my backyard smells like heaven.

2
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Mango season 2023 versus 2024
« on: March 26, 2024, 07:06:34 PM »
It’s too early to tell for me, but this mango season so far looks better than the last one despite the struggle with powdery mildew. I need to do a better job with preventive sulfur spraying next year.
I was hoping my Pim Seng Mun would fruit, but powdery mildew had a different opinion. It may be better for the tree that we wait until next year.
My Carrie is having a second bloom, which is much much less than the first one.
I pruned my Maha and Cat Saigon in September and that multiplied the number of panicles on the trees big time. It’s relaxing to look at the big 3 mango trees full of panicles and small fruits. The Fruit punch tree recovered from the PM outbreak, it seems like it.
My other mango trees, less than 2 years in ground, also had panicles and I cut them off when small fruits showed up.

3
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: 2024 FL Mango Season
« on: March 17, 2024, 07:59:25 PM »



Cat Saigon is in blooming and looking clean so far.
 

4
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: 2024 FL Mango Season
« on: March 10, 2024, 04:45:09 PM »
PM is pretty persistent for some trees after my latest attempt to wash it off. The fruit punch tree seems to remain clean but the Pim Seng Mun and other trees seem to be reinfected.
I gave the 2 y-o Carrie (bought @ 7 gal) a hair cut to get rid of the millions of dead flowers. Such an unproductive tree; it's interestingly immune to the PM problem.

Pim Seng Mun - PM remnant still visible


Fruit Punch


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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: 2024 FL Mango Season
« on: March 03, 2024, 07:11:52 PM »
fruitnoob, can you explain in more detail the water hose method? There still may be time to try it here😄

I should have said garden hose. lol
I blasted the panicles with water, using a garden hose. I stole this trick from someone in Orlando who has a YouTube channel.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: 2024 FL Mango Season
« on: March 03, 2024, 02:46:20 PM »
I've been dealing with bad scale and powdery mildew problems on my mango trees. My Pim Seng Mun is pretty much wiped out by PM.  Fruit Punch also got hit by PM but there are a few small fruits that seem to survive the attacks. Pickering, Valencia Pride, Cac also had PM all over them.  After a couple of sulfur sprays that did not seem to remediate the problem, i turned to the water hose method and so far the trees look clean.
My Cat Saigon started to have panicles and this got me excited.




7
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Saturday, March 23rd, 2024
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5895 Post Blvd, Lakewood Ranch Florida 34211
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Bring a Wagon and Cash
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8
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Fruit trees I gave up on
« on: February 22, 2024, 08:39:32 PM »
My loquat tree is slated to go to make room for my jujube. I bought the loquat tree because I heard it was one of “preppers” fruit trees. when the tree fruited last year, the fruits tasted so sour it was disappointing.

Highly recommend topworking it, or trying them when they are only dark orange. Loquat is an absolute keeper and there are some excellent varieties. Cannot fathom replacing it with jujube personally...

Loquat is a keeper because it is the only tree that ripe in early spring.  A good cultivar tastes great.

I would not recommend planting jujube because of suckers and invasive roots.  It is worse than bamboo.

Update: I decided to keep the loquat tree after reading comments from K-Rimes and seng. Today, my wife picked about a dozen of fruits off the tree and they tasted so sweet and flavorful. The tree is a keeper now.
Thanks folks.

9
Congratulations! You are so lucky to have fruits that don’t have latex.

10
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Interest in Jackfruit on TFF
« on: February 04, 2024, 07:18:53 PM »
So, these are summaries of jackfruit prunning tips from Dr. Campbell and the nice folks at Meadowcraft Farm in Australia. I tried my best to remember high-level details, and feel free to let me know if I missed any important details.

Dr. Campbell

Prune during warm wet time of the year (Aug to Oct) to prevent dieback
Reduce height to 10 feet
Remove fruiting spurs
Raise up the canopy
Do not cut into collars on trunk to prevent rotting
Train branches off of ground
Shape the tree like an umbrella


Meadowcraft Farm Australia

Height management - keep at 3 meters (~ 10 feet) tall (cut above secondary branch that grows towards center of the tree)
Open up the center of canopy to allow light penetration - remove secondary branches off the main leader 1 - 1.5 meters (3 - 5 feet) from the center
Thin out/remove dominant branch to calm the tree down

Maintain a vase shape
(Me: Easier to get this shape if start when tree is young)

There is at least 1 common theme in the 2 camps, which is to maintain the trees at about 10 feet/3 meters tall.

For my tree, Dr. Campbell’s tips would work better.







11
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: 2024 FL Mango Season
« on: February 03, 2024, 08:28:24 AM »
My Fruit Punch tree has a lot of powdery mildew; my Cac mango also has some. I am not letting the Cac tree to fruit this year, but I sprayed sulfur on it and the Fruit Punch tree anyway.
I am so excited about the Pim Seng Mun starting to bloom. Will keep a few this year if things go well.



12
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Interest in Jackfruit on TFF
« on: February 03, 2024, 08:18:14 AM »
Greater Good, when you say it took you 5 years did you prune a partial height each year till you ended up at that height? Tell us more.
I am also interested in learning about Greater Good's pruning tips. My tree is about 15 feet tall, and I want to maintain it at around 10 feet.

My female jackfruit flower is getting bigger (and heavier). So excited!



13
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: 2024 FL Mango Season
« on: January 27, 2024, 08:26:31 PM »
If a mango sends out blooms in S. Fl. when 2 ft high, suspect it to be under stress...

In 10a unlikely to have temperature stress of cold so far this year that would be greater than the normal primary desire to grow at the 2 ft. stage.

Suspect other stressors like weed wacker, rabbits nibbling on trunk, moles under the tree, soil ph or mineral balance off, water, etc. etc. etc.

Interesting. Thank you for your insights. I pay attention to this M4 more closely than the other trees in my yard because it is the last tree to go in the ground. It could be cold stress.
I am hoping it behaves like my Pim Seng Mun, which I bought in April 2022 and did not do much during its first year. Then suddenly it exploded in growth without me doing anything besides giving it fertilizer and water. The PSM’s trunk is as big as my 25 gallon trees. Edit:I did bury fish carcasses near the PSM.

14
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Interest in Jackfruit on TFF
« on: January 27, 2024, 07:22:39 PM »
I noticed one of my female flowers is getting bigger while the others stay small. I guess I’ll expect at least 1 fruit this season.
Does anyone know what insects are pollinators for jackfruit trees? My backyard gets a good number of flies on the mango trees and they seem uninterested in jackfruits.

15
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: 2024 FL Mango Season
« on: January 27, 2024, 07:17:14 PM »
M4 2nd yr flowering.  Almost every tip top to bottom has flowers starting.
Photo in pot May 2021!  These things grow quick.





Wow. Your M4 does grow quickly! I have an M4 bought from Echo in December 2022 and it is currently barely 2 feet tall. It receives the same care as other mango trees and seems to want to stay small. It is blooming everywhere,  too.

16
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Interest in Jackfruit on TFF
« on: January 21, 2024, 09:36:30 PM »
I honestly didn't know of the forum when I had selected these cultivars. I had read on the university of florida website, they were supposed to be good to eat also. Now I have exceeded the "just a hobby" stage and gone full on "bat shit crazy" for fruit trees. Thankfully my wife supports/allows it to continue lol. I understand now there's some other more desirable, crunchy, cultivars out there. J31 seems to be obtainable but is it a must have? I can plant one more row of trees @ about 16' spacing. It's the hardest row to try to plan since there's already so many. Wanted to throw a few more achachairu in, growing in greenhouse for 2 more years, since there supposed to be maintenance free and the evil weevils don't molest the foliage. Any jackfruit cultivar recommendations?  I was told jackfruit is very good if dehydrated, maybe the soft flesh fruits are better for dehydrating?? The seeds should still be tasty from them after roasting, I'm assuming the taste of these is more uniform throughout the cultivars??
Dehydrated jackfruit is the bomb, but the seeds though, I wouldn't say they're delicious. Personally, I would rather have a baked potato.

At least you did some reading. I went to the nursery originally just to take a look. Next thing I know we were driven around the nursery and my wife was like... i want this tree, i want that tree .. oh, we need to buy more trees for a free delivery..  ;D
Jackfruit seeds boiled with sea salt are pretty good snack. I had them when instant pot was not born yet and it took a while for the seeds to soften. It will take much less time to cook the seeds in an instant pot nowadays.
Coal-roasted seeds are pretty good as well.

17
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: 2024 FL Mango Season
« on: January 21, 2024, 03:43:38 PM »
A good number of mango trees in my yard flowered early. These are the ones I want to keep for the 2024 mango season.

Fruit Punch


Pickering - will keep a couple this year


Carrie


18
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Interest in Jackfruit on TFF
« on: January 21, 2024, 03:35:47 PM »
@Artocarpus: your tree and mine seem to have the same development pattern, and yes the leaves look similar at least to my untrained eyes.
@Timbogrow: I pruned the top once sometime before Ian. It is growing very fast, and I will reduce its height again in the spring. I want to keep the tree at around 10 ft, like Dr. Campbell said in one of the videos.
I tried to hand pollinate the flowers this afternoon, and I did not see any pollen from the male flowers (the ones without that 'ring'). My Q-tip felt like it went through a very rough terrain.  ;D

19
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Interest in Jackfruit on TFF
« on: January 21, 2024, 08:02:21 AM »
Here are pics of my jackfruit tree and 2/3 set of flowers.










20
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Interest in Jackfruit on TFF
« on: January 20, 2024, 08:56:32 PM »
Steve had some nice 25 gal mai 1 at that time. If it is grafted, pretty sure that is what I remember at the time. He might have had some seedlings at that time in 25 gal not sure what they were.

I've just read about Mai 1 jackfruit trees, and I hope that is what I bought.
One thing that still puzzles me about my jackfruit tree is that its canopy is very low (touching the ground) and dense. The trunk of my tree seems to be hidden behind the leaves whereas other trees that I've seen have open/exposed trunks. It may be a maintenance issue, and I will cut low branches in the spring now that I know the tree has recovered from the hurricane knockdown.

Jackfruits, in my opinions, are more versatile than many other fruits, mangoes included. Except for the spiky skin/rind, everything else from a jackfruit is edible. I've also heard that woodworking people really valued jackfruit wood for its quality.

21
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Interest in Jackfruit on TFF
« on: January 19, 2024, 07:08:40 PM »
My wife and I are talking about jackfruits more than mangoes these days.
I bought a 25gal jackfruit tree from Fruitscapes in the summer of 2021; I forgot to ask that variety it was. Hurricane Ian knocked it flat on the ground and I did a half-a** job getting it back up. I talked to Steve at Fruitscapes last July and he said the tree might flower this winter. He is spot on and I am stoked to see the 3 sets of flowers on the tree.

I am still not sure if any of them female flowers will become fruits with all the rain that may have washed out the male pollen. Just so excited that it finally flowered.

22
Thanks for sharing. This is great.

23
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Happy Thanksgiving !!!
« on: November 23, 2023, 10:02:55 AM »
Happy Thanksgiving!
I am very thankful to all who have shared their knowledge and wisdom.



24
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: First Nam Wah bananas for 2023
« on: November 05, 2023, 01:12:23 PM »
How tall are your plants and how many bananas did it produce? I had a “dwarf” namwa a couple of years ago and it fruited but barely fit in my 14’ greenhouse (it was in a pot). Also I got 57 off of it in a 35 gallon pot, curious what they would max out at.

Mine never have gotten taller at the crown than about 6'.

Mine is about the same or shorter.





25
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: First Nam Wah bananas for 2023
« on: November 04, 2023, 08:54:06 PM »
I am still waiting for my first crop of (dwarf) nam wah.
Some people said to cover the banana bunch (on the plant) with a trash bag to speed up the ripening of the bananas. Is it a myth? This is my first banana crop and I don't want to experiment with it. :)

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