This is an awesome thread everyone! Thanks for the input and knowledge. Does anyone have any experience growing Surinam Cherry trees from Exotica Nursery in Vista, Ca? I know they’re seedlings. I believe I got one called San Diego Red and another called Chamba. They’re in the ground and growing well and flowered for the first time this year.
I have several plants from them, Lolita, Chamba, and Vermillion that are now in 7.5g square pots. The Lolitas have been failures all around for me (it grew really fast and is in a 25 gallon) it got up to 7' tall and it flowered decently but never set fruit year in year out, even with cross pollination and even hand pollination. I stumped it and grafted Zill's on it from a FL source. I left one small branch to the side of the original Lolita to give it another chance but I am doubtful it ever will. The Zill's graft is doing nice and has flowered before but no sets.
The Chambas have been getting hammered by either a fungal issue, or thrips or something. The leaves have this sort of micro hail damage look all over. Regardless of fungicides and imidacloprid, or frequent sprays with Neem, Insecticidal soap, you name it and still the same. I fear it will pass into my other productive pitangas but seems to be kind of localized to just a few. An Argentinian seedling I have from Marcos has the same issues but not quite as bad. I don't know what to do about it. SoCalBalcony suggests that maybe I'm over fertilizing so I'm going to give that a break and properly ignore them for awhile.