The Tropical Fruit Forum

Congratulations! It is always exciting to taste a new hybrid, knowing that you are the first person in the world to sample it!
Very nice photographs as well, I hope that when the tree gets larger the flavor will become a bit more interesting.
I am more then a couple of years away from tasting my first crosses, and very curious to see what you will find in the coming years!

Pancrazio, I think your best chance is to contact the Swiss man Gabriele who grows avocados on the lake side of one of the alpine lakes. He has been doing that for twenty years and has mature trees of most American varieties. He speaks French and Italian, I don’t know his name, but it should not be hard to find out how to contact him from the videos


https://youtu.be/3xFA2ElmujA?si=ODyZxGVdqxqEDw9V

And a long interview with him in French:

https://youtu.be/ekcuASa_jEw?si=3hy8nOVEYZujlnGM

If you don’t speak French and can’t find out, let me know, then I’ll watch the whole video again and see if I can find out how to contact him.

Good luck, and if you manage to find out how to contact him, maybe we can pm each other and do an exchange together, I think I would also like to exchange a couple of avocado scions with him.

Solko

I’m in the Netherlands as well, same climate and same problem with soggy wet soil all winter. I’m on peat-like marshy soil with a very high water table in winter (10-15 cm below the ground surface) and lots of standing water. That is why I haven’t planted many of my citrus in the ground, but have most of them in pots. I have experience with Poncirus and Bitter Orange from seed as a rootstock and am now trying out FA5. Poncirus is hardy, but grows slow in our climate, and a certain percentage of them don’t do anything at all, when you grow them from seed. Bitter Orange is much more vigorous, but less hardy and is susceptible to more diseases. When you graft something on to it that has a virus, you will lose the whole plant while that same scion may show no problems on poncirus. But the plants that do grow, grow twice as fast as on poncirus.

I also have a couple of plants that I bought from Lenzi, and I am not sure what rootstock they use. Those may be on a hybrid rootstock, but so far I haven’t seen a real difference in vigor compared to poncirus.

I do have one older big Poncirus growing in ground for 5 years now and it grows slow but steady. It seems to be able to handle the cold wet soggy soil in winter. I may graft some cold hardy citrus on it this year.

I have seeds of a couple of local Eugenia and Psidium selections I have made in an unheated greenhouse in the Netherlands. They are available only when in season and always fresh. Now I have seeds of five varieties of Pitanga and three varieties of Cereja (E Involucrata). In the coming weeks I will have some seeds of Ubajay (E. Myrcianthes).
You can see what I have in season on: https://www.bontegout.com/seeds-shop
I only ship within the EU.

Hi Jorge,

I received the seeds today inperfect order, thank you!

Solko

Nice thread!

I have a couple of Pitanga's here in Europe that have fruited last year and are all flowering right now. I'll have varieties of five different seed sources to taste test in a month or so. I am in Northern Europe, so I grow these in an unheated greenhouse, where a selection of plants has no trouble handling the -5 Celsius in winter nights.

My best variety is from seeds I bought it from Vitor, a seed collector from Brazil that posted on this forum in 2015 and 2016
The first and second Pitanga I fruited were from these seeds and it was a new fruit to me. After having read everywhere about that strange Diesel or Turpentine flavor I was curious to try, but I couldn't figure out what everyone meant. The first year only one fruited and the cherries were small but delicious. They tasted a bit like Bell peppers to me, but then wiht a more fruity and sweet flavor. The second year the other fruited and it also had that same delicious flavor. Everyone I gave them too loved them, so I was a bit mystified about that aftertaste story.

The last year the first plant from a batch of seed of a supposed orange Pitanga started fruiting, so I tasted one and bingo! -a ll of a sudden I realized what everone meant by Diesel taste.

The plants that are flowering now and I still have to try this year:
 a seedling from Miguel's Regina variety, that he selected in Portugal
 a seedling from a 'mini' Pitanga, also from Vitor from Brazil
 a seedling from Cassio's Black Pitanga, also from Brazil
 a seedling from Casio's Big Red Pitanga, also from Brazil
(I have many pictures but it seems i'm unable to post them here.)

I'll take Brix measurements and measure the fruits as well. My best variety has very small fruits, but they have absolutely not even a hint of turpentine taste - they are rather the size of blueberries then cherries, and any bowl you put on the table finishes quickly. It is super productive, though.

That big leaf variety looks impressive!

E Candolleana?

Only a few of them are partially self fertile. All benefit from having a second plant as pollinator to get a bigger fruit set - or any fruit set at all. Hukvaldy and Unique are partly self fertile.

PM sent 

Yes, it looks like Uvaia. They can have a very varied appearance and leaf size, even on the same plant, depending on growing conditions and age.

I am just on my way back from a ‘tour de France’ and here I have some leads that I had noted down. I myself haven’t been able to visit any of them due to lack of time on this family holiday.

I did find Avocado trees on the Mediterranean coast, Feijoa and loquat all through France, and large collections of citrus and apples in all the different chateaus....

Here are my notes:

An older website with partially accurate information (some nurseries don’t exist anymore)
http://www.fruitiers-rares.info/articles-A123a128/article124-pepinieres-fruitiers-rares-France.html

And this nursery looks pretty interesting, but they are on holiday til September.
https://www.sebtan.fr/

The INRA has a large apple collection near Angers and near Bordeaux, but I can’t seem to find the info on how to visit them.
https://www.pommiers.com/verger-conservatoire/conservatoire-

Hope that helps!

Bon voyage!

Beautiful, Luis! It looks like you are going to have plenty of fruits this year. Any special ones that you are excited about and that you haven’t tasted before?
It looks like your garden is going to be a place of plenty in the coming years! Beautiful!

That is pretty impressive. I’ll send you a pm with some seeds I can exchange with you. I’d love to try growing out some seeds of these new varieties in our climate.