The Tropical Fruit Forum

I am also still a noob in grafting. I did about 40-50 so far and have some questions as well.

The knife has to be bevelled at one side, but i bought 2 grafting knifes allready that are only bevelled 1 side. So i  made my own from the vile of a victorinox which is bevelled 1 side now.

I grafted a mahanChanok which is alive for 10 months on the host but it has only 2 leaves and nothing happens. To force it growing i took one leave off but in 30 days still nothing happens. What can i do to make it grow? The tip of that graft is dead wood so it only has 1 leave now and a healthy stem.

I use small mango-trees for grafting (many different species) but how can i force them to make good buds? They are in small growers bags of plastic so i can easy tie them to a bamboo stick for approach grafting but actually i want to go for the real grafting ways like side veneer or cleft grafts. I tried that many times but they always die. I never used the paper, only bind the branch to keep it in the shade.

When i wrap them in plastic totally they turn black and die. Water can come in i guess so how can i prevent that so they stay dry?
I also always get very small crawling insects under the plastic so how can i close it well so nothing can come in my grafts?

I use some plastic film from the gardenshop which is transparent and stretchable. They dont sell parafilm here.

I was thinking to put my sciontrees in pure vermiculite to let them start making fat buds that i can use as scions. Is that a good idea or does anyone have a better plan? My trees are now like 30 cm with 2 branches from 10cm. I can buy new ones easy but like to use what i got.

For me the cantaloupe, guave and papaya are the ones i would not eat more then a few pieces of. Durian i have to try again without smelling it.

But there is so much fruit that i have never seen or heard of, i hope they will be on some tv-program soon on a discovery channel.
I saw the trailer of the "fruitpickers" here on the site, is that a new program that will be on discovery-channel? If so i will sure watch it.

In Thailand i will not eat apples anymore but there sure are nice ones in other parts of the world.

In the past i got them away with feeding them dry yeast mixed with fruit-jam. They like to eat it and it kills them.

My flowering mangotree is also full of ants now but i dont see the problem yet. I had the mango leaf-cutting weevil  ( Deporaus marginatus ) who ate my new flushing grafts but i sprayed something against them today.

I only like the durian chips which are very tasty and crispy.

I heard from my wife that the Nonthaburi durian (Kaan yao-species) is the most highly priced in thailand. If you want one you have to order it in advance and prices go up to 2-300us$ !!  for 1 fruit. It has to be grown in Nonthaburi or it is not the one that they want to pay for. How they can check if it is really grown in Nonthaburi i dont know.

I just removed a nest of weaver ants in my mango-tree. After that i found our that they are very usefull for protection against bugs. Now i m looking for a nest to place it back in the tree but i have to find a way to move the nest without getting bitten.

Oh now i see, quick reply is to reply on a post...i have to learn all options.

Murahilin i dont know yet, i tried one approach-graft to a thin mango-branch (I took the whole stem from the maprang with 4 thin branches on it and keep it in the sun) Also i made 2 side veneer grafts.  The veneergrafts were having a swollen bud but very thin, like 3-4 mm so it was hard to do that while mosquito's were biting me nonstop. They are under the leaves so in pretty much shade.

I also will try the lalee jewo soon but i have to buy it first. My thai wife don't know the kuini but if there are more thai fruits that i can graft on the mango then let me know i will buy them and try it. I am sure when my mango has many different fruits the whole neighbourhood will come to see what the strange foreigner made out of his mangotree. So far nobody believes me that it is possible.

Thanks Mike.

I know much better places to buy plants then Chatuchak market. I buy where the salesppl from Chatuchak also buy, the wholesale shops who dont speak english at all, nothing is labeled and they all look at me like which western soccer-team is in our country now? Anyway who comes to Bangkok should visit Chatuchak market in the weekend (full market) and on friday only plant-market.

I will help anybody with my knowledge of Thailand, i live in Bkk for 9 years now and speak a little Thai, i am Dutch by the way. I also have stayed in Cairns at the Esplanade when i was travelling there many years ago.

I have 2 NDM tree's. 1 is flowering like crazy (they keep on coming)  since 3 weeks now and the other one has no signs of flowers yet. Tree's around the neighbourhood have no flowers yet but i dont know what species they are. My grafts are less then a year old and do not flower yet. The mango's are about 2cm in diameter now. I have the flowering tree for 10 months now and it is 3-4 meter high.

I sprayed with copper 2 times  but it rains every few days so i wonder if it helps. Not much anthracnose untill now, do i have to pick the infected or misformed leaves off?

My small Chocanon tree had flowers 3 months ago but they all fell off.  Chocanon can flower like 4 times a year here in the tropics. I ate some chocanons yesterday but they are far not as sweet and nice as a NDM.