The Tropical Fruit Forum

My condolences, by the way, on your mother-in-law's passing. My other post was already long enough and I did not want to pass over somethung of that importance without a few words. John 15:5 and John 11:25-26 seem appropriate for her from what you have told me. I hope you can enjoy her memory as you work her soil.

Good links. I had found Petals From the Past, but they never showed the grapes in-stock back when I was looking. Fiorelli looks like a good option. When I was a kid, my Dad had a green bunch grape that grew up over the top of the shed. I remember climbing up there and eating them. They were so good. It was either Stover or Suwannee. I think the FAMU grape is FAMU 99. I heard that it is productive but tart. Speaking of Florida A&M they have two new grapes out Blanc du Soeli and C-30 (which has not been officially released to the public yet).

I got it from someone from TFF . Got it last year during the summer time, just a small plug. In less than a year it got about 20 times bigger, flowering and fruiting in abundance. Super healthy plant.

And the taste of the fruit is???

Great! I was about to check in with you to see if you had female blooms opening yet. As Brad said insects should do the job for you.

There is a ton of interesting stuff going on with grapes right now. At the moment, I would say that Dunstan's Dream, Tari's Burgundy, Z86, and Caribe (female) are the most promising heirlooms adapted to Florida from what I have read. Florida has a lot of genetic diversity in wild grapes. Lots of grapes have been bred here by different people. UF grapes seem to do better in Texas because they focused on Pierce's disease but not foliage diseases (Blanca du Bois). One of Charles Demko's best grapes has become a successful rootstock in the California grape industry because of its high vigor and nematode resistance (Demko 10-17a). Joseph Fennell, bred grapes with amazing resistance to leaf diseases (Caribe, Tamiami, Seminole, etc), but some are not fully PD resistant. His grapes are doing well in Hawaii.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://projects.sare.org/wp-content/uploads/GrowingTableGrapes_Web.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjps9HXsqOFAxXYTjABHda4DR8QFnoECCoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw33YdGy2iuPQt8KxEYExClx

Robert Dunstan who bred Dunstan's Dream used muscadine genetics. He also bred the Carolina Black Rose (which later became one of the parents used by the University of Arkansa breeding program for table grapes). He sent propagation material to Bob Zender in South Carolina who continued to breed grapes with Muscadines for the rest if his life. Z86 is suposed to be his best grape. The Southern Home grape is actually the result of his work, too. He sent the seeds to Mortensen at UF who grew them out and made one more back cross to muscadine. Some of his material should be trailed more in Florida.

Cantaloupes look great, by the way! No signs of downy mildew or pickle worms.

Any bets on how long it will be before California passes us in acreage? I give it 2-3 years. They already have more production and a better box price. Come to think of it, if we got $50 per box like they did instead of $14 you wouldn't see many bad groves (even with greening). Fortunately, we still have some tangerine acreage going in from Nobel Agriculture to produce local Juicy Crunch tangerines. Apparently, they can still turn a profit on that.

There is a Facebook page called Southern Grape Growers. There might be some info on there about Dunstan's dream. I don't have face book, so have only been on there a couple times when I was able to borrow an account. Tari's Burgundy and Lake Emerald are two other bunch grapes that get talked about as well as some of the Zender hybrids and some really old ones made by Joseph Fennell. I have Lake Emerald and hope to try Tari's burgundy and Dunstan's Dream at some point. I have hopes that grafting to the native Calusa grape (Vitis shuttleworthii) will be beneficial. It has field resistance to the grape root borer according to old UF research as well as resistance to many other soil pathogens and nematodes. My first graft with Lake Emerald is pushing now. Time will tell.

That does not resemble any graft that I have ever seen including side graft and approach graft. It sure looks like a failed graft.

Well, that is comforting. I'm afraid that it won't last much longer, though. The groves around here look as bad as they ever have. I would wager that many of the "bearing acres" are producing less than 50 boxes to the acre. I visited a grove last week that I estimated would pick about 10 boxes (it was not a new planting). In spite of all that it is good to know that people have not completely given up yet.

It was fun reading through this thread and remembering all the great kumquats I used to eat here in Central Florida before HLB killed them. I noticed some discussion about the thorns on seedling kumquats. We grew about a dozen from seed and every single one had wicked thorns until it started fruiting. After that, the new growth was almost thornless (just very small thorns that weren't really a problem). However, the thorns from the juvenile stage remained. On 1 or 2 trees I took the time to trim off each thorn with a saw so that it was flush with the trunk. It took about 30-45 minutes but it was well worth it. The thorns never came back and the tree healed over the spots. I got the idea from wild trees that I could see had gotten the juvenile thorns broken off over time. I thought those of you with thorny seedlings might like to know.

Relax, it looks like a normal bloom to me. And yes, males are first to open shortly followed by females and then a few hermaphrodite flowers (hermaphrodite bloom does not tend to make high quality fruit from what I have observed). It is very rare to see completely all male bloom on a tree. The only time I have ever seen that is as the result of a freeze about the time the flowers were going to open. Some varieties have a lot more female blooms (like Mauritius). Sweet Heart has way fewer. Remember, out of that whole panicle with hundreds of blooms only around a dozen will end up as fruit. So, there don't have to be many female flowers...

I would check to see if the soil in the pot is too wet. They don't like wet feet in my experience. The other thing I have noticed is that they are sort of semi-deciduous here droping a bunch of leaves and looking trashy. Then they flush out and start looking good shortly after. Jaboticaba does the same thing.

A few years ago I went up to central Florida and stopped at a couple of abandoned citrus farms that were clearly in decline. Neither seemed to be over run with weeds or vines but a good half of the trees were dead or dying possibly due to lack of watering, fertilization, or the effect of cold snaps. The fruit on them was very good.

Things have not been the same since citrus greening (HLB) has spread through out the state. Now the trees start to die within a month of the owner walking away. Before HLB, citrus grew wild all over this part of the state. The only thing that kept it from getting listed as an invasive species was the influence that the citrus industry had in state government. Fruit on the surviving trees in abandoned groves is fairly sweet in my experience especially if it was a valencia grove. Hamlins were never as sweet but production was higher.