The Tropical Fruit Forum

Hello everyone,

Please share your experience on when is the best time to pick and to eat each variety of mango. It will certainly help us to know the timing so we can eat them at the peak of it's flavor.

I am new to mango growing, and have been reading almost everything in this forum to learn from all the gurus here.
Yesterday i just tried my first Kathy from my tree. It was really good, sweet, juicy, and fiberless, but lacked any complex flavor.
It certainly did not 'Wow' me. I picked it when it had about 30% yellow color and the nose already turned soft. Then I left it for about 4 days on the counter until it turned completely yellow before I ate it.
Did I leave it too long on the counter? Or did I pick it too early?

A week before I ate my Sweet Tart, and it was really delicious. It was not only very sweet and tart at the same time, but also had some very complex savory flavor to it. I picked the Sweet Tart a little early, and the color never turn completely yellow, but it was already soft when I ate it. Last year I picked it almost fully ripe, and it was just really sweet and really tart without that delicious savory flavor like this year.

This video from Sulcata Grove is very informative about when to pick and eat the Dot mango for the prime eating quality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBMJ1ehQLuw

And I just picked some Sugarloaf yesterday because it has some yellowish blush already, I would like to know how long I need to leave it on the counter before I can eat it for the best flavor.

Below are the pictures of my Kathy and Sugarloaf.

It was windy with scattered rain this morning, causing some unripe fruits to drop.
One of them is from a mango tree labelled as Orange Sherbet that I got from Florida 2 years ago.
The tree arrived half dead, shippen bareroot and lost in mail for 5 weeks. It was also had bad anthracnose.
I lost hope but still nursed it. 2 years later it is a happy strong mango tree.
 I picked up the fallen mango and an overwhelming jasmine smell blew me away.
I don't have any jasmine plant in my yard. The OS mango tree is in ground next to a tomato, a suriname cherry, and a calamodine. But there is no bloom or flower at all on the calamodine now.
Is this a mislabelled Orange Sherbet?
My husband confirms that this mango smells really flowery too.
Other mangoes that are still hanging on the tree do not have a strong flowery smell though.
Pictures attached.

I will do some pruning before I take a sabbatical medical rest for a few months, and I also have some extra seeds. I apologize that I cannot do any shipping at all, travelling to the post office is kind of a task for me and I have a tight schedule now before my medical procedure.
Location in Sun Valley near Burbank airport.
Saturday is the best day to pick up.
This offer is only to pick up from 06/04 to 06/11, if no one takes them I will discard.

Cuttings:

- Dwarf Thai Mulberry ----> it is not dwarf at all, but it is super productive, and actually after the 2nd year the fruit is getting really good if you let it fully ripe on the tree. It is almost as good as black Pakistan when it is fully ripe. It fruits all year long for me with no care and very little water.

- Possum purple passion fruit ---> very vigorous, fruit all year long, and taste better than Frederic or Panama in my opinion. If you are lucky I will have some fruit to share when you come. Very drought tolerant, I rarely water it and it keeps producing fruit like crazy.

- Passiflora Decaisneana ---> I never tried the fruit, this year is the first time it holds fruits. Supposedly it tastes really sweet. Limited cuttings, since my vine is only 2 years old.

Seeds:

- Vermillion Surinam cherry ---> harvested within 3 weeks. The tree is productive, low maintenance, and drought tolerant.
- Thomas sapodilla ---> from the fruit I got from Florida (limited quantity).

Chempedak is my favorite childhood fruit after mangosteen, but after I killed several numbers of seedlings, I am moving on and want to try to grow chempejack or jackedak instead.

Top Tropicals is the only one certified to ship to California. They have this variety:
4692 Jackedak Cheena, Jackfruit x Chempedak (Artocarpus x integer)

However since they have minimum order of $200 to ship to Cali, plus another $120 shipping fee, this is not a cheap purchase and I want to know the odds of getting any fruit here in Los Angeles area. I am in Sun Valley, zone 10A.
Mangoe, lychee, and longan grow well here, but I have killed numerous amount of soursop, jackfruit and chempedak.

I am planning to put the Jackedak in the ground, next to the wall, a mango tree, and a pommegranate tree to shelter it from cold wind and gives it more 'micro climate' condition.

Will anyone who has experience growing Jackedak or Chempejack in So-Cal please share here?

Thank you!

I have some fresh Vermilion Suriname cherry seeds from a tree that produces very delicious fruit. Also some Pierce cherimoya seeds.
First come first serve. Pick up in Sun Valley, or send me a stamped envelope, I am not going to post office since the wait has always been too long.

Thanks

Strange story but true, I found this single white sapote in the middle of iHOP parking lot in Burbank. The fruit is not big, but looks clean and fresh, so I picked it up. I walked around the neighborhood but did not see any white sapote tree.
The fruit was light yellow with some green hues, I waited until it turned completely yellow, wrinkly and soft to cut it open.
To my surprise, this is the best white sapote I've ever tried. Of course I haven't tried that many. I have eaten some from Fullerton arboretum, my neighbor's tree, and some given by friends.
However, nothing is as good as this one.
Soft melting flesh, zero aftertaste, no bitterness, very sweet but not nauseating, a little caramel butterscotch flavor to it.
The outer peel tastes a little bit savory salty.
There are 2 big seeds and 2 tiny ones.
Will the seed grow true to the parent?
Here are the pictures:

Good afternoon everyone.
My Kohala longan loaded with flowers now, but there is no bee around. My neighbors all have colorful flowers in their yard, when my yard is full with longan, lychee, and mango trees. Seems like the bees are more attracted to the flowers.
The only insects around are ants, and sometimes lace wings.
Should i do something so the bees will come and pollinate my longan?
Does spray honey water help to attract more bees?

Thanks everyone!

Hello everyone,

There is one last spot in my yard.
So far I have:
1. Sweet Tart
2. Peach Cobbler
3. Orange Sherbet
4. Sugarloaf
5. Venus
6. Kathy/K3
7. CAC
8. Son Pari
9. Dwarf Hawaiian
10. PPK / Lemon Meringue
11. Pickering
12. Golden Lady
13. M4
14. Honey Kiss -- 1 year old seedling
15. Unknown variety- taste coconutty & fiberless
16. Edgar

Most of my trees are still small, except for 3 that in bearing age.
So I want to get one last one (really), that is precocious, decent to good producer, with some different taste than what in the list.
Tropical acres farm website says that Val Carrie can taste like bubblegum.
How precocious is Val Carrie? Productivity?
Chris and Har have a video on Val Carrie that says Val Carrie can taste really delicious one year, and totally off the other year. Does it occur in Florida only, or here too?

Thank you very much!

Here is the problem:
I like green mango salad and it is hard to find a good quality green mango to buy.
We have limited space, and so far we have: Peach Cobbler, Triple Sec, Sweet Tart, Sugar Loaf, Orange Sherbet, Glenn, Honey Kiss, and a Super Julie is coming next year. Only Glenn has fruits this year, and it does not taste good unripe (hard to chew, bland).
I am the only one who likes green mango salad, the rest of my big family love sweet ripe mangoes. So I am trying to find one last mango tree to fit the need here. I watched several youtube mango tasting, and Bhram Kai Mea/ Pram Kai Mea seems fit, but some of my friends say Maha Chanok tastes good unripe (crunchy, a little sour, sweet) and fantastic when it ripes.
Anyone can chip in their thought?
CAC tastes fantastic ripes, but nobody know how it taste unripe.
Please share your experience here.
Thank you everyone!

My friend who has 30 years of experience on grafting fruit tree told me that guava and lychee are the toughest to graft.
I really want to multi graft my guava tree. It is a healthy Vietnamese giant, about 7 ft tall, has been 8 months in the ground. I want to graft Dolores and Jalisco to it.
My grafting experience so far is only white sapote and loquat with 95% success rate. Avocado with 10% success rate (part of the failure because of the heatwave).
If anyone have any helpful tips or tricks to increase the success rate, please kindly share here.
I will graft the scions onto the lateral branches. Possibly the green young ones since it will be easier to cut through.
Any thought will be highly appreciated.
Thank you everyone!

I apologize that what I offer is not a plant. Been asking around and no one want this hen.
It just came uninvited to our house about a month ago and makes it her home.
I don't have problem adopting her, but our home is already claimed by the neighbor's cats. So the poor chicken is chased around all day. I try to knock the neighbors' doors if their hen is missing. Nobody claim it.
If anyone interested, let me know.

2 years ago I bought 3 seedlings, a pitomba, a pitangatuba, and and achachairu. 2 of the seedlings died during the winter, eventhough I tried to protect them. One that survived is a very though little seedling. It did not even wilt when I forgot to water it for a week. It is in a 5 gallon pot and today I see a bloom. I am just wondering what it is. Please help me ID it. Thank you very much.