The Tropical Fruit Forum

Those look great! 19 brix for a first fruiting is pretty good. Looks like you got a good flesh to seed ratio, too.

While copper is primarily used as a fungicide it also has bactericidal action. How effective it is varies based on the particular bacterial disease and the copper product. I know that in the citrus industry copper is used to help control citrus canker--another bacterial disease. My understanding is that it is only partially effective at controlling MBBS. I need to learn more myself about what particular products are most effective.

In my experience, extension agents are best viewed as librarians instead of experts. I don't mean to diminish in any way the work they do, but their main function is to help you find information from an expert. For example, the IFAS article about Mango BBS cites Alex Salazar and Gary Zill as primary sources.

Also, properly ripened pineapple is on par with mango in taste--absolutely amazing.

My guess is that you got a seedling tree somehow. It should start fruiting once it ends its juvenile phase. Guava seedlings from named varieties typically produce good fruit.

Nice pictures, Luke. I really liked Wayne. Sounds like we visited him about the same time. I was there in May of 2017. I didn't take any pictures, but was also amazed by the size of the fruits. I hope the articles are helpful in getting your cherimoyas to fruit.

Quote from: Galatians522 on September 02, 2024, 10:04:08 PM

Quote from: mcoambassador on September 02, 2024, 05:56:52 PM

Quote from: mcoambassador on January 11, 2024, 03:17:36 PM

Quote from: Galatians522 on May 11, 2022, 10:28:27 PM

I think we could fruit any Cherimoya with the right cultural care. It would need to defoliate in September and bloom in October so that the fruit could develop over the cool part if the year and then finish ripening in April before things got too hot.

Has anyone attempted this September defoliation method for Cherimoya in a warm region yet? It sounds promising.

September has arrived and I’ve been considering defoliating my cherimoya to try to induce flowering. Anyone trying that this year? Does stripping leaves from a single branch work or does it need to be all/most branches?

You should be able to do individual branches. I will havr to wait to try this on my seedling cherimoya until it starts blooming. On a similar note, I do have bloom on a single branch of my Painter Cherilata where I cut it back about a month ago.

Lots of blooms happening. No one with fruit.

I realize that my views are not conventional on this topic. When I read the original comment, I pondered whether to share the results of my research or not. I was fairly certain that people would question it unless I had pictures of my own tree. Skepticism is understandable. Since other people had similar questions, I decided to share what I had learned inspite of this.

First, John Painter's cherimoya tree did get production of poorly formed fruits that fully ripened at about tennis ball size for many years here in Florida. Popenoe apparently reported similar results. Fruit is possible here even though they are poorly formed and production is very low. I believe that with a proper understanding of the problem and the correct cultural care the issue can be solved. I have based my comments and thinking on two scientific papers. The first was a study done in Japan detailing the exact effects of heat stress on cherimoya. It is 108 pages. I have not re-read it, but as I recall heat stress was most harmful to mid-size fruit. This explains why typical season cherimoya fruits stay small in Florida--mid size fruits in May get zapped by the heat.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/39210630.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiXibK13qaIAxUeRzABHYBfNPUQFnoECBkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1vns6FMuVNPJi56BXMYn-M

If fruits could be produced in the off season, our weather would be moderate and within the range that would not cause heat stress. This is where the second article came in. It is a description of the procedures for prodicing off season cherimoya in Spain. While I am not certain of the exact timing for Florida conditions because I have not had the opportunity to experiment with that, yet, the logic is sound and science based. I have linked both articles for anyone who would like to draw their own conclusions.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://journals.ashs.org/horttech/downloadpdf/view/journals/horttech/18/1/article-p24.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjSmriK46aIAxX9tYQIHVGeCu0QFnoECA4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1KGrN63lxl1QTfgEqie-1a

Quote from: mcoambassador on January 11, 2024, 03:17:36 PM

Quote from: Galatians522 on May 11, 2022, 10:28:27 PM

I think we could fruit any Cherimoya with the right cultural care. It would need to defoliate in September and bloom in October so that the fruit could develop over the cool part if the year and then finish ripening in April before things got too hot.

Has anyone attempted this September defoliation method for Cherimoya in a warm region yet? It sounds promising.

September has arrived and I’ve been considering defoliating my cherimoya to try to induce flowering. Anyone trying that this year? Does stripping leaves from a single branch work or does it need to be all/most branches?

You should be able to do individual branches. I will havr to wait to try this on my seedling cherimoya until it starts blooming. On a similar note, I do have bloom on a single branch of my Painter Cherilata where I cut it back about a month ago.

Quote from: Galatians522 on August 30, 2024, 09:54:07 PM

There is an old study that was done on this. As I recall citrus on wampee is a no go. The reverse (wampee on citrus) can work for a little while (I think the longest lived combinations petered out at about 10 years old).

Should have queried about it before grafting. What's doable on a wampee as root then?

Based on what I remember of the study and no personal experience, I would just stick to Wampee.

Interesting. I've eaten the little strangler fig fruits from our Florida native species. They were not bad, but they weren't really good either. Sweetness was the main component that was lacking.

I would add Okrung to Simon's list of poly mangos that tasted similar/excellent from seed.

A quick taste review on some Florida Muscadine (vitis munsoniana) juice that I made this past week. I'd been watching a vine on the side of the road as I drove back and forth to work. It was absolutely loaded.

 So, last Friday I stopped and picked about 10 cups of grapes in about 15 minutes. I picked clusters instead of individual berries, so it went fast even though the berries are small. This is one advantage with the Florida Muscadines--all the grapes in a cluster tend to ripen at the same time. As is usually the case, these were on the tart side (the sweeter vines usually get picked by the critters early in the season).

After washing, I crushed the grapes (stems and all) in an old fashoned cone and pestle. I poured the juice in a jelly bag and let it drip overnight in the fridge. The juice was pretty tart (as expected). So, I sweetened the juice to taste with some sugar and diluted with a little water. I think I got about 2 cups.

Wow! It was excellent! The flavor was about 3/4 red grape 1/4 foxy ("Welches grape juice"). It was a little bit of work to pick the grapes and make the juice, but I think most people would like it if they tried it.

One other neat thing is that since the grapes were high in acid, some tartaric acid crystals (they look like kosher salt flakes) actually settled out of the juice when I added the sugar. I had heard of this happening, but its the first time I've ever actually seen it. Apparently, these crystals can continue to grow into "wine diamonds" under the right circumstances. Who knew?!

I have no experience grafting grapes but I have six varieties to experiment with. Thank you for the idea!

I've had pretty good success with bunch grape hybrids so far. Muscadine grafting is on my to do list.  Here is the best description I have found.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://growingfruit.org/t/grafting-muscadines/18324&ved=2ahUKEwi_iL6frv2HAxWbRjABHbQXLkgQFnoECB0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1HHYTYNcNTvxnkRIooQj9X

I had to transplant a starfruit earlier this year while it was actively growing. A friend was coming to pick it up after I had grafted it, but when I went to grab it from the nursery, I discovered that it had rooted down into the soil and needed to be repotted immediately. It did survive and is now growing happily at my friends house. But, it did drop quite a few leaves. It would probably have been much better if I could have waited until it were dormant (i.e. not actively growing). It was in "typical" potting soil if that makes any difference. By way of comparison, similar treatment killed my first ever successful mango graft. So, I am always careful about transplanting tropicals that are actively growing, now.