The Tropical Fruit Forum

There was a thread where people were talking about "lara farms 1gal grafted trees" and I was thinking lara farms doen't even *sell* 1gal trees, their base size is half-gal pots

And so I went and got a container from my "1/2gal" stack, which includes containers from lara farms and pretty much every other mail-order tree seller.  And I got a container from my "1gal" stack which I have tons of because the previous owner of my first house was a landscaper and I found a stack of hundreds half buried in the woods when I bought the house

And I got a 1/2gal milk jug, wrapped the smaller nursery pot in plastic wrap to seal it, filled up the 1/2gal milk jug with water and poured it into the container.  The water filled the pot nearly up to the bottom of the rim (which is 1.5" from the very top).  I figure this reasonably holds a half gallon of soil, considering you generally don't fill it all the way up because then it is harder to water.

But it seems what I have always been calling a half-gal pot is actually a "trade 1gallon"?  And my "1gal" containers are more like 2gal.  I measure the smaller pots as 5" wide base and 6.5" tall, but really 5"tall usable.  The larger pots are 7" wide base and 8.5" tall max / 7in" tall to the rim.  I always knew trade sizes were slightly off actual volume but it feels like they are *way* off what you'd eyeball.

This isn't a critique of lara farms or any other sellers, more of me realizing I've been misunderstanding the terms forever. 

I was looking at this tree today thinking it was my sunquat.  The sunquat fruit looks nice but doesn't taste very good so I usually don't even pick them.  I noticed a split fruit was pink inside and checked the label, this is actually my Flame grapefruit on flying dragon.  It had three undersize fruit but they look and taste like normal grapefruits.  Not bad for a tiny tree with a 3/8" diameter trunk.  This might end up in-ground in my greenhouse again once I make some space.  I had a big one on some other rootstock that made tons of fruit but it was overly vigorous so I grafted this one onto FD to replace it. 

Anybody else growing this?  I saw K-Rimes mentioned it once.  I got mine from Exoteninsel, it is the fastest growing and healthiest of my uncommon eugenias.  I am hoping it will flower this year, hasn't yet.

My tree is about 4ft tall and growing in a turkey roaster pan.


this is the seller image and description of the fruit at https://www.exoteninsel.com/Eugenia-tenuipedunculata-1-germinated-seed-1-gekeimter-Samen/EI11128:

This Eugenia is very rare and was discovered by Helton Muniz during his expedition in mid-October 2014
 in the remains or remaining parts of the semi-deciduous forest
 in the municipality of Angatuba (Sao Paulo), where he found only two specimens.
The Eugenia pedunculata is a beautiful tree with delicious fruits.
The fruits come in yellow and black. This is the black-fruited species.
In Brazil, this Eugenia flowers for the first time after about 4 years.
Hmm it says about 4 years to flower, mine is almost 3yrs from seed.  Maybe I have a while longer to wait.

A year or two ago franklazar sent me some of these seeds and I now have two small fruiting trees.  If anybody would like some seeds I probably have a dozen or so viable ones.  I figure I can give out a packet of about six seeds to two people who want them. 

No charge. 

First come first served, must be pre-existing forum member.  US mainland only.  Coming from Pennsylvania, consider any quarantines you might have. 

I had been discussing these trees in this thread https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=41086.0 over the past year or two but I figured I would create a fresh post. 

I am just about to pack all my container trees into the greenhouse so it seemed like a good opportunity to take a few pictures before it gets crowded in there. 

Marang (artocarpus odoratissimus)
Just over 6ft tall.  This one looked haggard coming out of winter but replaced all of its leaves and is looking better than ever.  Some leaves are nearly 2ft long.  It has nice branching and is bushy enough I will keep telling myself I can keep it under control, even though I suspect it will become unmanageable with a year or two. 



Jackfruit (artocarpus heterophyllus) 'Golden Nugget'
10+ft tall.  It flowered the prior year but not this year, not sure why.  It remains extremely healthy, I expect it will pick back up in spring.  I just pruned it heavily for the second or third time this year.


Kwai Muk (artocarpus hypargyreus)
10+ft tall.  No flowers yet, not sure when it will start but it looks great.  It was looking sparse in its lower branches on one side where it got a lot of shade but has filled in a bit.  I have to keep pruning the very top as it wants to grow top-heavy.


Cempedak (artocarpus integer)
14in tall.  This thing is more than two years old but incredibly slow growing, though it always looks healthy. 


Keledang (artocarpus lanceifolius)
1inch tall  .  I started a bunch of seeds, of the six or so that put out leaves this is the only remaining one.  They seem prone to damping off, hoping this one survives. 


I had a nice pedalai (artocarpus sericicarpus), too, but I abandoned it when I realized how big they get and how long to fruit.

All these trees are in-ground except the keledang.  The greenhouse ceiling allows trees in the center row to reach about 12ft before they start hitting the fans

I have armor scale infestations on a few of my trees.  I just sprayed them with hort oil a few days ago, but I can't tell if it worked.  Even with a macro lens I am struggling to see what is insect vs the shield/cuticle/test.  Will they fall off or at least clearly discolor/shrivel soon if dead?  I don't want to keep spraying them repeatedly if the insects are dead, but if I can't tell it is difficult to tell if I am ignoring a remaining problem that will only spread once all the plants are packed in the greenhouse for the winter.  The small crawlers are definitely dead, they aren't moving, but the adults under their armor shields I cannot tell.

Main hosts right now are citrus, mango, abiu, rollinia.

Wow this was in a 20gal until April I put it in a 35gal.  Look at that root growth!  I don't think these are viable in containers long term.  This is the end for this one, it has been replaced by an airlayer-child to conserve space.

My soursop tree finally set a fruit.  It isn't all that large so I am not sure if it is just a small fruit or if it is still expanding.  It is firm and has no smell yet.  Can I just wait for it to become soft or fall off the tree?  Or it needs to be picked hard and counter ripened?

Inside my greenhouse where there is no wind, I found my rollinia tree fell over.  I know annonas seem to have more shallow roots than some other types but this was a surprise.  I hadn't paid much attention to it in a while but I guess it grew so many new leaves in the past week or two it fell over from their weight.  This tree was nearly bare not long ago after spider mites ravaged it.



I got some help righting it until I can get a better look at it in daylight

I live in the upper native range of paw-paw trees, though I have never seen one and my uncle who is an amateur orchardist says he's never seen one either.  I ordered ten 1yo trees and twenty seeds.  I planted most of the saplings randomly out in the woods and around a stream to see if any survive.  I also started germinating the seeds with great results so far. 

I am thinking of planting two in my yard near my other temperate stone fruit trees.  Any idea how long these take to reach maturity?  They seem like they must be slow growing as the 1yo trees I got are quite small compared to 1yo cherimoya trees I've grown myself.  Also, can they take 100% full sun?

Forty days ago I did a bunch of loquat grafts to topwork my established Christmas loquat tree, and it looks like many of them took.  I wrapped the cleft graft unions with what I think is PE tape, and I believe this tape does not breathe at all.  Should I unwrap all of the grafts now to let them breathe and avoid mold/rot, or is that unnecessary?  Or... am I more likely to be harming them in doing this as they could still risk drying out?  The scions have not pushed new growth yet but they look nice and healthy and I have pruned back some of the parent tree branches. 

I had never attempted air-layering / marcotting before, but I have done cleft grafting and rooting many times.  I was reading about marcotting and watching some videos and it seems odd to me that the leaves on the selected branch are left on.  I always remove all or nearly all leaves when rooting of grafting to keep them from drying out. 

After the bark (w/ phloem) is removed, isn't marcotting functionally the same as rooting?  Or is the wood (xylem) still transporting water into the branch and is this the reason marcotting is superior to cutting the limb off entirely and rooting it? 

I just attempted this on my ice cream bean tree and I must admit I feel like the girdled branch is going to just wilt completely by tomorrow because these things are so thirsty.  I can't imagine it is uptaking any significant amount of moisture from the peat bag/wrapping.

Sorry if this seems like such a basic question but I found a million guides on grafting but none went into any detail about *why* it is done this way.

My only loquat is Christmas and it always blooms a ton, is very healthy, yet produces fewer than three fruits per crop for the past couple years.  While reading about it on this forum I have found a number of comments describing the same behavior.  Should I just give up on it?  Or try a cross-pollinator?  Now that the recent blooms are falling off on mine I have only spotted one fruitlet so far with hundreds of blooms.  Now, mine is in a greenhouse with no pollinating insects so that could certainly be a factor, but it has bloomed outside the greenhouse also and same result.

Here are some of the anecdotes I gathered, though there were an equal number of posters saying good things about the variety:

Loquats are very cold tolerant. I had a Christmas in the ground that survived subzero fahrenheit for multiple nights in a row. It'd flowered every year but could not hold fruit so I chopped it. I have a bunch of seedlings growing in the same spot right now from fruits I'd purchased over the Summer. They have already endured low 30s so far with absolutely no problem.

I have a Christmas, and it flowers profusely but has not set fruit in 3 years. The first year it was in a container and it had lots albeit small fruit but now it blooms and the blooms die. I don't know if it needs cross pollination or if it's self compatible or if I need more bees. It's a cute little tree but I don't plant for ornamental value.

Mine is only a couple years old but same story - it has flowered profusely twice now and not set a single fruit. It's in a full sun spot so not sure what the story is. Both of us in Coral Springs too.

Kaz and some others have many varieties of loquat and didn't mention any issues with fruit set.  I wonder if Christmas simply needs a cross pollinator to be productive?   Not sure if SirGraftalot, gnappi and savemejebus have other types nearby.