The Tropical Fruit Forum

Good luck bud.   I went thru 200 gals. of rainwater today.  Texas is finally getting some rain.  My area is still in an Exceptional Drought category after about 3.7". .

One of the avocados I grafted last year had been doing pretty well until the last month or so. Recently some of the older leaves are looking a bit yellow and a few have brown tips. It is growing in a container (around 4 or 5 gallons) in a  fast draining medium (EB Stone cactus & succulent with some extra perlite) and fed with a standard avocado/citrus feed. I'm wondering if the container is too small and could be contributing to the problem.  I have another slightly smaller grafted avocado that is growing in a similar container with the same medium and that one seems absolutely fine. So I'm really not sure what's going on. Would appreciate any advice or suggestions.

I don't seeing yellowing.  Hard to beat Osmocote Indoor-Outdoor Plus, 6 mo. slow release, 15-9-12 with micros. 

You must retrain with staking or cutting back one of those side branches straight up to form a new central leader.  I did the goalpost topping about 3' up on a Reed and it never recovered from being all wonky.  A good freeze and I'm now back to a beautiful tree that I maintain to 12' H X 8'.

Not practical and the "benefit' will be moot.

You'd be better off biting the energy bullet and installing high output LED's on a timer. 

Years ago I had a greenhouse with the back wall on the south, was a garage wall.  Painted it with a white latex for its reflective properties.  Flowered the hell outta of orchids.

one of the links you posted said it was a chance seedling at the maluma ranch.  With "unknown" lineage.  Its obviously hass parentage. The odds of getting what appears almost an exact clone of hass from a chance seedling seems pretty  unlikely.  Then I assume this new variety has been patented?  So basically its hass but you have to pay royalty?  Thats what Im getting at.

You have to realize Im always skeptical of everything Mark.  I want to know the details and who is making money off of everything.  Whether its fruit or medicines, technology, war, etc. 

You and me both brother.  I'm very much a skeptic and cynical of what I hear and read.  I'm just relaying what the Aggie specialist is telling me.  I'll be glad to give you his work number if you want to chat with him.  He's pretty sharp.

I haven't considered getting scions, but I'll see what I can do.

I put in a bunch of hass trees on dusa clonal rootstocks this year.  The dusa trees are in a row side by side with a row of zutano rootstock trees.  I would like to try this new mulama hass type side by side also. They claim it makes nearly 2X as much fruit as regular hass.  I find these claims hard to believe.  For me seeing is believing.  These claims may be based on higher density of planting.  If you grow hass you will see it loads itself with fruit to the point of sagging and breaking branches.  So when someone claims their new hass clone makes 50% more, it seems unlikely. 

 

If they have a profit making stake, then yes, they're going to make big claims.  The money goes to the propagating nurseries via royalties though. Performance is directly related to ALL the factors that go into production, of any fruit, especially location and the clime, weather and soil profile of a particular area.  If a farmer says it's producing 50% more in Australia, then good on him.   Apparently it has merit or they wouldn't be swapping out Hass for it, don't care if it came from Mars. 

On a similar subject, if you look at the dusa rootstock hype they claim hass makes more fruit on it than other rootstocks.  I read the technical documents and trial data etc that the university published.  They did all kinds of experiments to come up with this claim.  But nowhere in there did they include the zutano seedling as a control group.  Its like a whole bunch of academic masterbation they put out and failed to include the gold standard as a reference.  I mentioned this to Gray Martin, he seemed to be in agreement that data could be twisted to try and force a conclusion with this rootstock business.  It was an interesting conversation.

I can only imagine.  I also questioned one of the positions Gray put forth.  I find some recommendations aka "standard procedures" with some Aggie fruit specialists ridiculous too, like rough pruning vineyards in the winter.  It actually promotes early budbreak thru the re-distribution of auxins, the very outcome you're trying to prevent in case of a late frost.....and it's make work-requiring a helluva lot of labor which is in short supply here.

Regards,
Mark

Sorry about your JB Brad! 

The maluma looks exactly like hass to me.  Seems suspect.  But maybe just a hassxhass seedling.

Suspect?

Or course it looks similiar, it's a sport of Hass, just like you'd find with other fruit trees where one tree stands out, is different, out of an orchard of say..... 500 trees.  For example my VERY favorite grapefruit, Rio Red, was a sport of an old popular grapefruit,  Ruby Red selected in the citrus growing area of the RGV Texas.  Looks very similar to Ruby Red but the flesh is very red with a reddish tinge to the skin when mature.  It was propagated via tissue culture then released to the public and commercial grower.   Same with Maluma, it is propagated via tissue culture, cloning.

Again, a clone of the original with different attributes, traits.  Some will be appealing to those (who hold a certain criteria) some won't.  As you know I have a vineyard and with each varietal there are a few to many clones available for sale.  One clone might have a large open cluster with smaller grapes, another clone might have a smaller bunch that has bigger grapes and a tight cluster.  It's still the same varietal.  There were about 8 clones of Merlot available when I went shopping for that varietal.  I chose the proclaimed "best" sourced from a vineyard in Beaucastel France.

Grow hard,
Mark

This is a picture of my , uh seriously 10 year old grafted Gem.
I have always thought the allure behind this variety was the perfect initials of its patentor.
What makes it the B grades?

Something's wrong my friend.  That thing should be 15' tall.

GEM is a strong grower albeit not near as vigorous as say....Sharwil or Reed.

It is Maluma, a sport of Hass with better attributes like longer hang time.  Popular in S. Africa.

Thanks for the info Brad. I'll check with the specialist.  I may have gotten the spelling wrong. Whatever it is, he says it's a big hit in South Africa.  I searched and read a few threads on it here.  https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/CFS-AVO-3C.pdf

Sorry about that heat. I have a friend in Utah who says the lakes have all but gone dry.  Apparently north of you  got some really good snow about a week ago.  We too are in a designated "severe drought".  No significant rain for months.  So much for the incredible state wide wildflower crop this year.  My area is thick with them usually, both sides of the roads for miles and miles.

There's also a couple of branches of Lamb on that Sharwil, thanks to you!

GEM, Feb. 22.  Buds just now opening.  My 10' Sharwil has been blooming for weeks.  Flies really like it. Bees not so much.



Sharwil

I was out in Morro Bay for lunch today and decided to stop by Morro Creek Ranch to buy some avocados. $1.50 for either Hass or Lamb Hass... haven't bothered to stop there in a while since Righetti or others in Arroyo Grande seems better (CalPoly's was even better).

I just thought of you Mark! Seems like they have the better stuff on site vs mail order!

Seems that way!   Years ago all I got was black, rotting fruit with strings. 

Sounds wonderful except for the strong sour taste.  Takes a lot of sugar to balance that out.

I grafted a scion of Page mandarin to a Persian  lime tree.  It really took off.  Any tried Page?

Way to go, very inspiring. 

A lot of my avocados like Sharwil have flower buds and the citrus is loaded.  How do you like the RootBuilder?  Is it bottomless?

Arctic cold front kicks us from the 70's down to 19F Sunday!

Stay warm....

Hey Mark, this was from earlier in the year or did it happen again?

Feb. 2021

Merry Christmas from Texas.