The Tropical Fruit Forum

Almost all of the time, the problem is cultural, not a disease.  They definitely need more light. Light through a window isn't enough. Mine like a four ft, four bulb led shop light. The more they can photosynthesize, the better they can recover from stress.  Also, if it IS a disease, you can remove the affected leaves and see if that takes care of the problem.  That was why I was asking how many leaves they had.

Good luck!

No, you don't need to foliar feed these micronutrients. Chelated micronutrients were invented because many of these nutrients only work within a very limited pH range of soil or soilless medium. Chelation protects the nutrients against pH damage and lets them be available to the plants across a broader range of pH.

The more important thing to me is organic (for example, manure) vs synthetic (chemically manufactured nitrogen source). Now, discussing this is like talking about religion or politics - people tend to have strong opinions. This is my take on it, after decades of growing happy, healthy plants. You can take it or leave it.

I go with synthetic fertilizers (good old Miracle Grow, at half the recommended rate, every time I water) for all my peat-based potted plants. Organic fertilizers need to be broken down by soil microbes before becoming available to plants. This takes time, months to years, AND if you are using a soilless potting medium like I do, it is hard to get flourishing microbial life to begin with.

However, in my garden, in the ground, with dirt and worms and things, where I can plan a year ahead, I prefer organic fertilizers.  I still tend to get pre-mixed stuff (I like Dr. Earth) rather than try to balance manure, compost, blood meal, guano, bone meal, etc into something my plants need.  I only add a single product if I can see a difficiency. There are probably recipes for complete organic fertilizers, but it can take months to see results from what you add (the stuff has to travel through the gut of microbes first...), so it is almost impossible to tell which thing you added had what effect.

Did that help, or confuse you more?

Cheers,
Carolyn

Depending on how rare, Montoso Gardens always comes through for me.  He also has neighbors in the business, and I know when I ordered some Herrania seeds he once ran next door for some!
You can always contact them and tell them what you are looking for and they may be able to lay hands on some.

Carolyn

Coffee loves shade?  I have always had mine in full sun and they look very happy.

I agree cacao and garcinias seem to like shade.

Probably depends on where you are. I am in high desert at almost 3,000 ft and not a single cloud all summer long.  You could probably ROAST coffee in the sun here in the summer 

Go for the mosquito granules in your water that you water the plants with.  When you buy it, make sure you get bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti), NOT Btk (kurstaki). If it says it if for mosquitoes your good to go.

Kurstaki only kills caterpillars.  Israelensis kills the larva of mosquitoes and fungus gnats.  TOTALLY harmless to all plants including my orchids.  We have West Nile virus here, and some of my birds that live in the greenhouse got it about a dozen years back.  Since then I am on a mosquito rampage.  Zero tolerance.

You need to put the Bti (I use the granules and put them in a little tulle bag that I buy from the party store) into your plant watering source at least 24 hours before you use the water.  You can't actually see the Bti, the bits you see are corn cob or sawdust that has been impregnated with the bacteria.  I use the bag to keep the corncob bits from going through my sump pump when I water.

Cheers,
Carolyn

That is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. It is on an island in Norway. 
There was a higher amount of water than expected that got into the vault in 2016 but the seeds were not damaged.  It spooked authorities enough that they did some re-designing. 

It holds something like a million different crops. Pretty cool!

Too bad most of my favorites are recalcitrant, and can't be represented there...

Carolyn

Yep, got back yeaterday. Hopefully they sprout.  The bael was tasty, but oh my gosh it was the atickiest thing I have ever touched! Literally EVERYTHING stuck to my fingers and wouldnt rub off.  Fruiting right now we ate mamey, lots of lychee (my favorite fruit) but we had to fight off two Chinese ladies who were shaking the trees and scooping up everything off the ground.  There was some sort of annona, I forget which, and heaps of miracle berries. Oh, and bilimbi.  It was really fun. I loved identifying fruit I have never seen in person.  Made me feel smart!
I take my seed collecting kit with me everywhere.  A new addition to it will be wet wipes...

Fun trip overall, but Florida is so crowded.  We bought a thrift store suitcase, checked all our clothes and brought back two carryon suitcases crammed with cuttings, trees in one gallon pots, orchids, etc.  The security guy at the airport jokingly asked my husband to blink twice if he was being forced to "carry" against his will.


Cheers,
Carolyn

We have been in Florida on vacation for two weeks, and just did our plant shopping today.
Flying home tomorrow.
Had to buy a thrift store suitcase to check all our possessions so we can get the darned trees in our carry-ons!
I do love Robert Is Here, just for the ambiance.  Plus, the exotic fruit milkshakes keep my hubby happy while our rental car veers into every nursery within twenty miles of Homestead...

Carolyn

Hi,
My first thought is not enough light or heat.
What you are calling "sub branches" are actually leaves.  They have compoiund leaves about a foot long, with leaflets arranged down the sides.  So it is normal to drop the whole leaf (what appears to be an entire branch).  It is scraggly in its growth, which probably means not nearly enough light. What strength of light do you have on it and for how long? You dont really need a plant light, just MORE light. Lots more light.  For my full sun trees in my greenhouse, I may have four, 4 ft, 2 bulb LED or fluorescent lights, kept about a foot above the top of the tree. And thats in a greenhouse, not in a house window.

They also like lots of heat.  If it is outdoors in summer and your nighttime temps drop to in the 50s or 60s, it will be hard to get good growth.

You can get a phone app called Photone that measures your current light and tells you how much light it is getting (in PPFD and DLI. Lumen measurements are fairly useless for plants). Virtually no light that is useable by plants gets through a glass window. Visible light, yes, but not what plants need.

From experience, it is really hard to grow full sun trees indoors.

Where in Oregon are you? Build a greenhouse! It's lots of fun 

Cheers,
Carolyn (Boise Idaho)

I feel your pain, Ryan!
Everyone laughed when I got hooked on tropical fruit trees. Boise Idaho is zone 6, so a greenhouse was the only way to go.  I struggle getting things to fruit, and cant put anything in the ground due to cold clay soils and huge tree roots under my greenhouse.

I like to think my trees have it pretty good compared to Florida or the tropics - I can give them the weather they need, and avoid the hurricanes, etc. And greenhouses, as a hobby, are way cheaper than other things, like horses.

So hang in there!

Carolyn

Whoa whoa whoa!  Hold on a minute!  You are telling me that Florida squirrels eat mangoes, but not tomatoes?
In Idaho, I have not lost a single mango to squirrels, but they love to dig up my tomato plants to bury their stupid peanuts!

Oh wait... maybe its because my mangoes are in the greenhouse with the door shut...
How about someone invents a mango-flavored tomato??

Cheers,
Carolyn

I use the cheap ones with no controllers all the time in my greenhouse and have never had any problem with them. I set plant trays with ridged bottoms right on top of the mats, put my little pots in the trays, and put a cover on them at night, take the cover off during the day. Been using them for years and haven't killed anything. And I do germinate cacao seeds that way.

Carolyn

Thanks all!

Carolyn