The Tropical Fruit Forum
Tropical Fruit => Tropical Fruit Discussion => Topic started by: CoPlantNut on May 01, 2014, 07:40:46 PM
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When I was 3, I started planting seeds from tropical fruit because I wanted to see what the plants looked like. I had no local examples in Colorado of things like citrus and avocado trees. Any time I saw a new fruit available in the grocery store, I wanted to get one to see what it tasted like-- and what the plant looked like. Over time my obsession changed to growing things that were simply not available in any store in my area-- at least not in decent condition.
My obsession has continued for several decades and I recently decided to try a Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana). It seemed like a particularly fun, if idiotic challenge to try and grow here. They're slow, picky and notoriously challenging to grow, at least here in the continental US.
On top of that, for it to work in my available climate-controlled conditions, I would have to keep the plant in a pot its entire life and at most 5 feet tall. I'm still a long way from fruit, but I'm a little surprised with how well it seems to be going so far.
At the end of March 2012 (2+ years ago) I received 2 Mangosteen and 2 Achachairu plants from Montoso Gardens in Puerto Rico, in quart sleeves. I was amazed with the quality of the plants and packing-- and I got lucky that it didn't suddenly turn cold here while they were in transit.
After a week to ensure they weren't going into shock from shipping, I mostly bare-rooted the plants (there weren't many roots except the tap root) and transplanted them into a mix of 50% pine bark fines and 50% Turface MVP in 1-gallon pots. For the entire time I've had them, they've been getting watered as-needed (typically every 2-3 days) with filtered tap water (fluoride and chlorine removed) with 2.25ml of DynaGro Grow per gallon of water, adjusted to pH 5.6-5.8 with phosphoric acid.
To run a side-by-side test to see if fabric pots or a taller plastic pot would work better, I put one mangosteen and achachairu in each type of pot. Here are three of the plants April 3, 2012 after transplanting. The largest Achachairu I received is on the left, I still have the mangosteen (I'll call it #1) in the middle, the mangosteen on the right (I'll call it #2) was sent to Florida almost a year ago-- I needed more room.
(http://s2.postimg.cc/llva06a9x/IMG_0411.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/llva06a9x/)
To start, I had them under 1800W of HID lights (1 1000W metal halide, 2 400W CMH [ceramic metal halide]). They did OK, though the leaves showed some signs of stress (like most plants under HID lights); here they are June 10, 2012 (2 months after repotting, after their first growth flush):
(http://s8.postimg.cc/nabxi893l/IMG_0545.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/nabxi893l/) (http://s8.postimg.cc/5009rm8lt/IMG_0547.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/5009rm8lt/)
Shortly thereafter I got another 2-gallon mangosteen seedling from Ethan in California (I'll call it #3), shown here on the left before repotting, May 10 2012:
(http://s14.postimg.cc/f10u207h9/IMG_0428.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/f10u207h9/)
This too promptly was bare-rooted and put into a 1-gallon fabric pot with gritty mix. I decided to try it outdoors over the summer, and while it didn't die, it clearly wasn't nearly as happy and is just now (18 months later) starting to fully recover from the lack of humidity, large temperature swings and frequent wind. I'm fairly certain mangosteen aren't happy outdoors here even during the summer.
I planted a couple G. xanthochymus and G. hombroniana seeds in the pots July 2012, and in October 2012 I started approach-grafting these seedlings on as extra rootstocks for the mangosteens. In November 2012 I switched the lights to 4x 450W Black Dog LED lights and 2X 400W CMH bulbs; by January 2013 I had ditched the CMH bulbs and was running only 6X 450W Black Dog LED lights.
The mangosteen seemed happy with the changes- here they are May 19, 2013:
(http://s2.postimg.cc/ep13nndz9/DSCN0897.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/ep13nndz9/)
Mangosteen #2 is on the left, #1 in the middle, and #3 on the right (just starting to recover from 3 months of exposure to a Colorado summer after 9 months in the plant room again).
Here's a close-up of #1's first pair of approach grafts, xanthochymus on the left and hombroniana on the right:
(http://s2.postimg.cc/vbinwq6x1/DSCN0891.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/vbinwq6x1/)
And here's #1 in its normal spot in my plant room, also 5/19/2013:
(http://s8.postimg.cc/fk55d36s1/DSCN0908.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/fk55d36s1/)
I'd read that mangosteen liked shade when small, so I put the plants under others and let them grow up through the canopy of the other plants to get more light-- it seems to have worked rather well.
Here's #1 on July 12, 2013 in it's normal spot in the plant room, sending out its first side-branches (bottom of the picture):
(http://s8.postimg.cc/7sofej2mp/IMG_1400.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/7sofej2mp/)
This photo from 1 month later (August 3, 2013) shows how fast it has started growing-- #1 is on the left, #2 in the middle, #3 on the right:
(http://s2.postimg.cc/4isi4ntl1/IMG_1609.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/4isi4ntl1/)
Granted it is a sample size of only 1, but #1 in the fabric pot seems to be much happier after 16 months in a fabric pot than #2 in the plastic pot, despite always having identical growing conditions. (I can show the same with Garcinia sp. achachairu, Garcinia intermedia, Luc's Mexican Garcinia and many other plants-- the root-pruning fabric pots seem to grow much happier, healthier, more compact plants in my conditions.)
Mangosteen #2 got shipped to Florida at this point, and #1 got repotted into a 3-gallon fabric pot. I added more G. xanthochymus and G. hombroniana nursing rootstocks to both #1 and #3 at this time as well.
Here's #1 on December 17, 2013 in its normal position in the plant room:
(http://s2.postimg.cc/mcsljp211/IMG_1958.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/mcsljp211/)
#3 got transplanted into a 3 gallon fabric pot around this time as it finally sent out its first branches.
Here's #1 after some more multiple-rootstock grafting work on January 20, 2014:
(http://s30.postimg.cc/qgwrrvi31/IMG_2055.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/qgwrrvi31/)
And here's #1 again April 26, 2014, after I've had it for 2 years:
(http://s29.postimg.cc/5iqltofmb/IMG_2236.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/5iqltofmb/)
(there is some extra G. xanthochymus and G. hombroniana foliage at the bottom-- future extra rootstocks).
Just for fun, here's a picture comparing the mangosteen to the achachairu from the first picture in my post, 2 years later:
(http://s29.postimg.cc/r9nbqf0gj/IMG_2245.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/r9nbqf0gj/)
(That's a Eugenia reinwardtiana on the left; it had to come out of the plant room to let the mangosteen and achachairu out.)
So far my largest mangosteen (#1) seems happy still in a 3-gallon pot; my general rule of thumb is to never give a plant a larger pot unless it is required-- defined as needing water more often than I'm willing / able to provide it. Until this plant dries out more than every 2 days, it will stay in this 3-gallon fabric pot.
Environmental conditions for #1 have been the same (except for the switch to LED light in November 2012) for the entire time I've had it: 70-72 degrees minimum at night, 88 degrees during the day, 70% minimum humidity, 100% humidity every night (condensation forms on the ceiling and walls of my plant room, but not on the plants). The photoperiod is 14-18 hours per day, aside from a few weeks a year I drop it to 11.5 hours (this is done to trigger my orchids to bloom, not for the mangosteen).
So far the mangosteens have been easier to grow and faster-growing than I expected; hopefully I'll be able to keep it alive long enough to get it to bloom-- I'm hoping that dwarfing it in a fabric pot, giving it extra rootstocks, and providing it with ideal environmental conditions may prod it into blooming young, but I'm sure I still have several years to wait.
Kevin
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In the name of container gardeners everywhere, I wish you good luck!
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In the event that thing makes a Mangosteen, you should be put in a magazine for tropicals. Very good stuff.
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Kevin, I'm impressed with you indoor growing experiment your growing and keeping alive many plants that I've over and over again in my G.H. Seems like the fabric pot's are working well for you that's great! Keep up the excellent work I'm sure I'll read one day soon that you have fruit! Enjoy and thanks for posting. 8) 8) 8)
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Wow, that's very impressive! Thanks for the detailed report. Do you have any spider mite problem?
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Thanks all; It's clearly going to be a while before I could get fruit- but after 2 years it is larger than I expected.
Seems like the fabric pot's are working well for you that's great!
After 10+ years of side-by-side tests of different pots, I'm sold on the fabric pots, at least for my conditions. Whether indoors in 70%+ humidity or outdoors in 20% or less humidity and harsh sunlight and wind, they seem to grow better plants than anything else I've ever tried-- and resist blowing over better than any other pot as well.
Wow, that's very impressive! Thanks for the detailed report. Do you have any spider mite problem?
Spider mites are one of the constant problems when growing indoors; I've battled them for decades with sprays before switching to using predatory spider mites and humidity. I still have spider mites, but the predatory mites keep them well under control and they don't seem to damage any plants-- I can only ever find spider mites on their favorite plants (mostly carambola) and even then only in low numbers. Predatory mites require higher humidity levels than normal indoors to keep them alive and reproducing, but since I set up a stable population in my basement plant room, I haven't even had an outbreak of spider mites on my houseplants.
Kevin
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This is great info!
I have a mini-garden growing in my house now, but it's a lot easier than it used to be up North, because I have plenty of sun, warmth, and humidity naturally now - and I also have more space.
One thing I have wondered about with indoor growing when you really devote an entire room to being a greenhouse, which is more than I have done as yet - do you see signs of damage to the house? Mold in the room or in your air ducts? Paint damage? Warping of floor boards?
As of now, I grow many vegetables indoors because it is more convenient in a lot of ways than growing them outdoors for me - I can control the conditions a lot better, check them closely for pests, and prune them as needed much more frequently. But, I'm not at a point where I am willing to sacrifice my investment in my house (or my health in terms of mold), for my indoor gardening. So after several years of what looks like an entire room devoted to high-humidity and well-watered gardening, have you seen effects on the room or house as a whole?
As a kid I used to dream about having an indoor pool, and my entire house would be a rainforest indoors, with sunlamps on the ceilings, a pet parrot flying from tree to tree, and grass on the floor too! But then as a teenager someone crushed that dream and said the humidity and chlorine fumes would destroy the house. I'm still not giving up on the dream though, someday I'll find a way to make it work! (Or at least maybe the pool part, if I get to stay in SFL I have the tropical feel outdoors now to keep me satisfied.)
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One thing I have wondered about with indoor growing when you really devote an entire room to being a greenhouse, which is more than I have done as yet - do you see signs of damage to the house? Mold in the room or in your air ducts? Paint damage? Warping of floor boards?
The levels of humidity I'm running indoors would quickly destroy most any house.
I have purpose-built an airtight, watertight, rubber- and plastic-lined room with a sloping, self-draining floor and separate ventilation for growing plants. It is the only way I can take care of so many plants, maintain the appropriate environmental conditions, and not destroy my house. Inside the plant room is 75% humidity and 87 degrees right now, but the basement just outside the plant room is 30% humidity and 70 degrees.
Kevin
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Here's a picture of mangosteen #3 (originally from Ethan, spent a summer outdoors) as of May 1, 2014:
(http://s15.postimg.cc/wrtfsfw0n/IMG_2365.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/wrtfsfw0n/)
The branch at the top-left of the photo is the lowest side-branch of mangosteen #1, so you can see how much more compact #3 is than #1. I'm betting it has different genetics than my #1 and (ex) #2 plant, but it could always be down to different conditions when it was young, or even when the tap root was self-pruned.
P.S.
See all the algae on the wall in the background? that's what high humidity and good light do to an indoor grow room. Luckily the algae is all on a sacrificial inner layer of plastic that is just taped up-- after 3 years, I can't clean it enough anymore and I need to replace it. My plant room was designed for this sort of thing- I've been trying to perfect indoor growing for a long time, and have been learning from my mistakes. You really need a sealed room just like a (temperate) greenhouse with water, air, temperature and humidity management to grow ultra-tropical things indoors without ruining your house. I've heard attached greenhouses can be a nightmare for the same reason-- if you don't seal the side shared with the house, it can quickly degrade.
Any way you do it, it isn't cheap to have this hobby outside the tropics...
Kevin
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awesome, Kevin, awesome....
You are an indoor gardening article, soon to be published!!!!!!!
Gary
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You are an indoor gardening article, soon to be published!!!!!!!
Thanks Gary; I bet I may be written up sometime, though it may be just as likely in a psychology magazine as a gardening one...
Kevin
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Very impressive Kevin, I love reading about your experiments. My mangosteens almost doubled in size last grow season, going from a node length of about 1/4" to one of about 2". I need to start adding some more rootstocks to it, thanks to you I might even get a mangosteen to flower.
Keep up the good work.
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Do you use Mycorrhizae?
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Do you use Mycorrhizae?
I've tried some of the Mycorrhizae supplements in side-by-side tests and couldn't really tell a difference, so I don't use them anymore. I'm betting all my plants are well-inoculated as I always have a lot of many-years-old plants in extremely close proximity to any new plants-- so in my conditions I believe the Mycorrhizae arrive quickly on their own. If I had a fresh greenhouse that I was filling with new young plants, I would probably still go ahead and add some.
Kevin
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Spider mites are one of the constant problems when growing indoors; I've battled them for decades with sprays before switching to using predatory spider mites and humidity.
I had them on my mangosteen, they weren't on there long before I erradicated, but they were on there long enough so screw up the leaves on the following flush.
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This is so exciting Kevin! I wish you all the success and hopeful that these will bloom and yield fruits. Being in a tropical country, we do large scale farming of Mangostana. The number one problem with this fruit tree is yellow exudation in the fruits. A good per cent of fruits are lost in this way. Has anyone got any thoughts of correcting this? Thanks! Sunny
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Hey Kevin, how's the mangosteen coming along? Do you think it'll flower? And are you planning on potting up into 15+ gals or keeping them small?
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Hey Kevin, how's the mangosteen coming along? Do you think it'll flower? And are you planning on potting up into 15+ gals or keeping them small?
The mangosteen is doing well. 3 months ago it was topped at about 4.5' as I cannot let it get over 6' tall; it is sulking a bit from that and has slowed new growth, but that was sort of the point.
It is still barely 4 years old now so I'm not expecting any flowers for a few more years, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
I'm contemplating moving it up to a 5 gallon fabric pot soon; it won't be getting a 15-gallon pot for a very long time as I want to force it to stay small and compact.
My second mangosteen (from Ethan) is obviously a different variety and is much more compact, only 2.5' tall but has almost as many leaves and branches on it at just a slightly younger age. If I had to bet, I'm guessing it will be the first to flower for me because I won't have to torture it as much to keep it small.
Kevin
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Kevin, thanks for posting all this information! You are an inspiration to many zone pushers and container gardeners everywhere. Your experiment is well planned out and you carried on with it even after all these years. A lot can be learned from this post, you truely are a master gardener. If you keep pushing on, I'm sure you'll be able to fruit your Mangosteen. Please keep us updated on your progress!
Simon
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I have 3 mangostan in pots. they are about 5 years old.
My experience so far.
They do not like direct sunlight, filtered, is ok, maybe an hour or two. every time I try to get them accustomed to more light, the tips start burning.
One that I had in fabric pot, did not do well at all. it was my largest one, and I also moved it to a fabric pot, it just stopped growing, after a year, it started to dry out and it died. when I pulled it out, they roots were had less growth on them then when I planted, I think too much air gets to them using fabric pots, I have had similar problems with other plants. I guess if you are using really heavy soil, the fabric pots might work, at present I only have one other plant still growing in one. a Governors plumb. seems to like it.
Mangosteen, do like foliar feeding, no surprise given their infamous week root system. someone I know in the agricultural business, has a plantation of these, his suggestion to me was to use frequent foliar applications, and include bio-stimulants ( natural amino acids and such ) and was able to get fruit on 5 year seedlings.
anyway I am amazed at your results, good luck.
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I have 3 mangostan in pots. they are about 5 years old.
My experience so far.
They do not like direct sunlight, filtered, is ok, maybe an hour or two. every time I try to get them accustomed to more light, the tips start burning.
One that I had in fabric pot, did not do well at all. it was my largest one, and I also moved it to a fabric pot, it just stopped growing, after a year, it started to dry out and it died. when I pulled it out, they roots were had less growth on them then when I planted, I think too much air gets to them using fabric pots, I have had similar problems with other plants. I guess if you are using really heavy soil, the fabric pots might work, at present I only have one other plant still growing in one. a Governors plumb. seems to like it.
Mangosteen, do like foliar feeding, no surprise given their infamous week root system. someone I know in the agricultural business, has a plantation of these, his suggestion to me was to use frequent foliar applications, and include bio-stimulants ( natural amino acids and such ) and was able to get fruit on 5 year seedlings.
anyway I am amazed at your results, good luck.
I think your suggestion of using foliar feed is a very good one. Mangosteens don't really have weak root systems. If so they would easily get blown over in winds, and they don't. What happens is that when plants are small they have very few lateral roots. Perhaps for this reason they have hard time absorbing nutrients. I believe when trees are older this problem is largely overcome.
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I also have a Mangosteen in a pot, and it seems to be doing fine. I wrote about it another thread last year, I forget which, and was warned that it is very delicate and won't survive transplantation after it is 2ft high. I bought it at 2.5ft, so wasn't sure what to do. Ultimately I left it in the pot until it was a bit over 3ft, and then transplanted to a plastic grow bag - simple organic soil on top of styrofoam peanuts (which I initially used just because I had an abundance to get rid of, and found that all of my plants seem to LOVE). The Mangosteen was indoors for over a year and seemed perfectly happy. It was no fuss at all - gave it some water every few days, and that was it.
I admit that at this point, I have abused it a bit. After I transplanted it to the plastic grow bag, I moved it outside into the shade, because I want to move it into the ground soon (assuming it survives the bag stage.) It will be pretty simple - I have a protected area that will allow it to grow into the sun when it is mature, but will be in shade and protected from winds while young. I'm planning to dump a few bags of the same organic soil I now have it in, into a 50 gal fabric pot with the bottom cut out, which will allow for a small mound but also be dug into the ground so it won't constantly dry out. The soil there is already better than most here several feet down because a prior owner used that space for landscaping... so that will give it maybe a total of 5ft or a little more of good soil to draw from. When I transplant, I'll just place the current grow bag on top, and cut the bottom, so there will be as little disruption to the plant as possible - that seems to have worked well for my other plants. The poor mangosteen has had some sun damage from the shock of being outdoors, with some leaves accidentally getting some direct sun. But it still appears healthy, and I'm keeping it reasonably moist.
It's just that I have so many other plants, and they all have a better chance of fruiting, and fruiting much sooner than the mangosteen, and the mangosteen grows so slowly it looks like an artificial tree, that it has lost priority a bit after the 100 other species I'm busy attending to.
The mangosteen seemed very happy indoors in indirect light, and needed no special care beyond water every few days to keep it alive and growing. But, it was getting too big to keep where I had it, and ultimately I did not think I wanted to fruit it indoors if I had a shot of it taking hold and being happy outdoors, given that we have no freezes here. I thought this year would be a good time to plant, at the beginning of the rainy season, on a year that happens to have a prediction of one of the mildest hurricane seasons (not that that means anything if you're the area that happens to get hit). It may be too big according to some to plant, but it seems to have handled it's bag transplant just fine, and I'd rather plant it now while it is still small than in future years, so it has a better chance of long-term stability.
So we'll see how it does in the next 2 months. If it is happy outside and seems to be growing in its new pot (it's due for another flush of leaves soon), then I'll try planting it when the flush is over. If on the other hand it starts to suffer, I'll keep it in the pot and move it back indoors to stay, and see if in fact I can be one of the few to fruit indoors someday.
I will definitely consider an organic foliar feeding at some point in the future. I don't really baby any of my plants that much, but it would be exciting to get this thing to fruit, given that not too many are on record in FL as having done so. I like to think it's perfectly possible but just not that many people have tried, or have documented it. It would seem to me that given the right conditions, indoor fruiting should be possible too. Plants are not that finicky - they just want their needs met. The key is knowing what those needs are. We'll see though. At least for this annual update, my mangosteen is as of now still alive and seems healthy.
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Hey Kevin, how's the mangosteen coming along? Do you think it'll flower? And are you planning on potting up into 15+ gals or keeping them small?
The mangosteen is doing well. 3 months ago it was topped at about 4.5' as I cannot let it get over 6' tall; it is sulking a bit from that and has slowed new growth, but that was sort of the point.
It is still barely 4 years old now so I'm not expecting any flowers for a few more years, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
I'm contemplating moving it up to a 5 gallon fabric pot soon; it won't be getting a 15-gallon pot for a very long time as I want to force it to stay small and compact.
My second mangosteen (from Ethan) is obviously a different variety and is much more compact, only 2.5' tall but has almost as many leaves and branches on it at just a slightly younger age. If I had to bet, I'm guessing it will be the first to flower for me because I won't have to torture it as much to keep it small.
Kevin
Awesome, thanks for the update :)
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My biggest is in the 3 ft range. It was lighted by only a couple of light weight florescent bulbs, and it was doing great. I now have moved it to a grow tent with 400w leds. It is still growing but I am getting chlorosis in the new growth. I am thinking it is not getting the nutrients that it needs. I'm thinking of trying chemical ferts to give it a boost. Anyone use chemical ferts on mangosteen? Or should I just dial back the light? I have used foliage pro exclusively on it, it seems to like it. Maybe just a higher dose of that. More foliar is definitely in order.
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I also have a Mangosteen in a pot, and it seems to be doing fine. I wrote about it another thread last year, I forget which, and was warned that it is very delicate and won't survive transplantation after it is 2ft high. I bought it at 2.5ft, so wasn't sure what to do. Ultimately I left it in the pot until it was a bit over 3ft, and then transplanted to a plastic grow bag - simple organic soil on top of styrofoam peanuts (which I initially used just because I had an abundance to get rid of, and found that all of my plants seem to LOVE). The Mangosteen was indoors for over a year and seemed perfectly happy. It was no fuss at all - gave it some water every few days, and that was it.
I admit that at this point, I have abused it a bit. After I transplanted it to the plastic grow bag, I moved it outside into the shade, because I want to move it into the ground soon (assuming it survives the bag stage.) It will be pretty simple - I have a protected area that will allow it to grow into the sun when it is mature, but will be in shade and protected from winds while young. I'm planning to dump a few bags of the same organic soil I now have it in, into a 50 gal fabric pot with the bottom cut out, which will allow for a small mound but also be dug into the ground so it won't constantly dry out. The soil there is already better than most here several feet down because a prior owner used that space for landscaping... so that will give it maybe a total of 5ft or a little more of good soil to draw from. When I transplant, I'll just place the current grow bag on top, and cut the bottom, so there will be as little disruption to the plant as possible - that seems to have worked well for my other plants. The poor mangosteen has had some sun damage from the shock of being outdoors, with some leaves accidentally getting some direct sun. But it still appears healthy, and I'm keeping it reasonably moist.
It's just that I have so many other plants, and they all have a better chance of fruiting, and fruiting much sooner than the mangosteen, and the mangosteen grows so slowly it looks like an artificial tree, that it has lost priority a bit after the 100 other species I'm busy attending to.
The mangosteen seemed very happy indoors in indirect light, and needed no special care beyond water every few days to keep it alive and growing. But, it was getting too big to keep where I had it, and ultimately I did not think I wanted to fruit it indoors if I had a shot of it taking hold and being happy outdoors, given that we have no freezes here. I thought this year would be a good time to plant, at the beginning of the rainy season, on a year that happens to have a prediction of one of the mildest hurricane seasons (not that that means anything if you're the area that happens to get hit). It may be too big according to some to plant, but it seems to have handled it's bag transplant just fine, and I'd rather plant it now while it is still small than in future years, so it has a better chance of long-term stability.
So we'll see how it does in the next 2 months. If it is happy outside and seems to be growing in its new pot (it's due for another flush of leaves soon), then I'll try planting it when the flush is over. If on the other hand it starts to suffer, I'll keep it in the pot and move it back indoors to stay, and see if in fact I can be one of the few to fruit indoors someday.
I will definitely consider an organic foliar feeding at some point in the future. I don't really baby any of my plants that much, but it would be exciting to get this thing to fruit, given that not too many are on record in FL as having done so. I like to think it's perfectly possible but just not that many people have tried, or have documented it. It would seem to me that given the right conditions, indoor fruiting should be possible too. Plants are not that finicky - they just want their needs met. The key is knowing what those needs are. We'll see though. At least for this annual update, my mangosteen is as of now still alive and seems healthy.
It's a total myth that mangosteen will not survive being transplanted. Actually they are quite hardy. I have shipped bare root mangosteen from Thailand and they all did fine after one week bare root in the mail.
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I have space and desire to grow mangosteen. I just cannot take the waiting part... I applaud you for having the patience to grow it indoors and grow it well.
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It's a total myth that mangosteen will not survive being transplanted. Actually they are quite hardy. I have shipped bare root mangosteen from Thailand and they all did fine after one week bare root in the mail.
That certainly has been my experience. In all honesty, while there is of course an art to growing plants and to truly being a horticulturalist, I have heard endless claims that plants in general are so delicate that turn out not to be true.
I have been told that my mangosteen would die from transplanting it, that my orchid would die after its first flowers because it is too hard to keep them alive for a full year, that my Birds of Paradise would die from splitting them and replanting them, that my melons would never fruit indoors because it's not enough sun, and on and on and on... and none of these things turned out to be true. I don't know why people are so afraid of plants, and of gardening. They're not little delicate flowers, so to speak, lol! They're hardy machines made specifically to survive against all odds, as long as you can give them the basic tools for life - just like human beings. If you understand that each plant needs a certain amount of water, certain nutrition, certain humidity level, and certain amount of light and oxygen... it's pretty hard to go wrong if you give it to them. Mangosteens in my minimal experience so far don't seem to need much from me - I haven't given it any more care than I have a ficus or a rubber tree, a random houseplant - and yet it grows just the same.
I'm not trying to be arrogant at all. It's just that plants don't need all the fussing from humans in order to grow. They are genetically designed to grow. The problem comes when humans place human expectations on plant achievements. If you don't require a plant to put out the absolute best growth, the best flavor, the most attractive leaves, the fastest fruit, the top of everything... the plant does just fine on its own, no special fertilizers or extra care needed. Grow a plant in an environment in which it is equipped to do well (even if that environment happens to be totally artificial like the indoors in a pot), and it will do what it does, all on its own. It may not have the most stellar fruit without intervention, but I don't care. I like the unique beauty of each plant doing what it was meant to do, in its own way. I love the diversity of watching different plants around me, doing different things at the same time. I love that they do not conform.
There is no particular reason that a mangosteen cannot be transplanted, that it can't be fruited indoors, or that it can't live and fruit outdoors in Florida. As long as it gets the reasonable care that it needs, it should be fine. In Florida, reasonable care involves amending the soil, because it's not likely to be happy on high-PH coral soil, it won't get the nutrients it needs, and will become susceptible to disease - just like a human lacking sufficient nutrients. But just because fruiting mangosteen in Florida hasn't been done a whole lot before, doesn't mean it can't be done. The same for indoor planting. The right soil, the right light, the right temps, the right watering... and it should be fine.
From what I have seen, mangosteen are not delicate, and anyone who wants to should give growing them a try. I hesitated because of all the reputation for being so precious and dainty... but I have treated mine a bit harshly at times and it is still kickin' it. There is no reason to fear - except of course for the price tag of the initial plant - which in my case was around $120. But it already made me pretty close to that much worth of happy, looking at it every day for over a year up close in my house and watching it grow while seemingly never move a muscle. It's a pretty cool, attractive plant.
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Interesting to see this old thread revived. The other day I was wondering what happened to coplantnut. Lol.
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has the mangosteen fruited yet in Colorado?
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I read somebody say that they were able to get Atemoya to bloom in less then a year from seed under lights. They also force fed it high middle number fertilizer.
I wonder if that would be an answer to the many "I grow it,but it wont flower and fruit" posts?
I might use flower fert on my Santol this summer.
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The Colorado mangosteen is doing well; it has been trimmed back twice now as it wants to get taller than 5' and I don't have the room. No hint of flowers forming on it yet, but it is only 4.5-5 years old so I'm not really expecting any yet. If it objects to being kept less than 5 feet tall it may never flower, though it is cooperating nicely with increased branching without getting too tall. All of the G. xanthochymus and G. hombroniana nurse rootstocks have died off, so it is living only on its own roots at this point, but it seems perfectly happy and healthy still in a 3-gallon fabric pot.
Sometime in the next 2-4 years I hope to get flowers!
Kevin
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Great to hear and thanks for the updates. Hope you get them mangosteen fruiting soon.
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It's good to see an update from you, Kevin. It kind of seemed like you fell off the face of the Earth. :) Could you post any pics of your mangosteen?
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My biggest is in the 3 ft range. It was lighted by only a couple of light weight florescent bulbs, and it was doing great. I now have moved it to a grow tent with 400w leds. It is still growing but I am getting chlorosis in the new growth. I am thinking it is not getting the nutrients that it needs. I'm thinking of trying chemical ferts to give it a boost. Anyone use chemical ferts on mangosteen? Or should I just dial back the light? I have used foliage pro exclusively on it, it seems to like it. Maybe just a higher dose of that. More foliar is definitely in order.
The temperature inside may not be consistently warm enough. They grew much better for me after I installed a thermostat and mini 250 Watt space heater to maintain the temperature between 77-79.
Before that the heat was coming mainly just from the lighting and was getting down to 63 at night. The plants seemed not to be putting out much growth or to be very slowly declining. I also found that the young plants (5 inches tall) do not seem to handle excessive light well. Bear in mind that there was plenty of humidity here and this was LED lighting. Yet the leaves started appearing a little bit bleached and unhealthy until I toned down the light level.
Another lesson learned is that heat pads did not end up working out well because they caused the soil in containers to dry out at a much faster rate. That's what happens when something is a warmer temperature than the ambient surrounding air.
This is in WA state:
"mangosteen and lychee, growing in warm enclosure"
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=26605.0 (http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=26605.0)