The Tropical Fruit Forum

I guess depends on where you are, we are still harvesting dragon fruit, figs, apples, grapes, jujubes, passionfruit, strawberry guava, and watching the larger guava swell, will be ripe soon. In Southern California.

Thanks Everyone for your interest, we have gotten through this fruit wave successfully and there will be more fruit, ending the "Back to School" sale. If I have responded to you already I will still honor the sale price for you. First come, first served! Thanks again.

What agreement did you sign?  Just curious, I would probably be hesitant to sign on with anything with the government.  What do they give you in return for you tossing your harvest, or what are the terms?

 Sorry did not check back, it was a "Compliance Agreement". Commercial growers are required to do this or they cannot sell their produce. Since we are Certified Organic and sell to grocers, we have to go along with whatever rules are put in place. We were the first farm to sign an agreement, and it's because we grow, harvest, pack, and transport everything ourselves, we don't have employees or contractors working with us. Being Organic, we have to submit to inspections yearly by our certifier, and often the CDFA will come out too, so we have to be ready for that. since the citrus psyllid came to town we have to cooperate. This is the first quarantine we have been part of, one of the low points in farming but at least the staff has been positive, and informative and helpful.

The farms who had fruit flies found in fruit or on the property had their crop destroyed, we were told, that is enough of a threat. Those who sign the compliance agreement, and who treat once a week for four weeks, (actually its 5 but what they hey, we can at least sell our crop), can get a clearance to harvest specific crops and sell them. We are using GF 120 naturalyte ( Spinosad). Malathion plus bait is the option for conventional growers.  The Mexican Fruit fly has a host list of over 60 plants, many subtropical , annonas, all green skinned avocados, guava, passion fruit, pomegranate, even apples and pears! I do not want to be a fruit fly home, I'd rather skip that, so far, so good.

Are you available for pickups on Saturdays?

Hi Richard!
Sorry I missed this yesterday, yes we are available for pickups on Saturday and or Sunday, I know some people are working during the week, we are usually here, will be making a delivery on Tuesday, but otherwise available. I can also come out closer to you if that would help, you are a ways away if I remember, and I am kind of in the "boonies".

Back to School sale. Mixed lots of CA Grown certified Organic Dragonfruit, pink and red flesh varieties, medium to small size, pick up in Valley Center, Ca or nearby. Contact here or at Rancho Los Serranos Facebook page to order. Minimum 5 lb order for a total of $25. Varieties included Delight, Physical Grafitti, S9, Haley's Comet, Purple Haze, Valdivia Roja, Armando, Lisa, Rosa.

Another vote for 8-S as Paul Thomson called it, I think it has the best flavor, and color when added to things like in smoothies. It is also the most reliable for us here. They started blooming in April with only a small amount of first drop and are still putting out lots of blooms. G2, Rixford, and S9 were also early bloomers. Now Armando, Rosa, and a few others are chiming in. Last year it was the Halley's comet that were among the earliest. Labeled "Physical Graffiti" but they had yellow stigmas so not Physical Graffiti. Have a tremendous season everyone!

Ive seen the presentation on the 4 or 5 new UC selections.  Thry pretty much stated a few of them have lousy growth pattern (weeping, not erect).  Thats like sir prize, makes lots of fruit some years, gets weepy, sun burns.  Not a winner.  Notice no one really ever started planting those commercially?  Maybe theres some lamb plantings but most everyone seems to still be hass or GEM.  Hass realy is the best all around commercial tree.  Hard to contend with.

Ettinger is a nice fruit, similar to sharwil.  It has some shy bearing issues is what I was told though.  Ive got a small tree but it hasnt produced any fruit yet. 

Theres a hawaiian one called fujikawa thats doing really well here, grows and fruits hard but the flavor is a little off unfortunately. 

Agree on the purple flowered DF.  Theres a few decent ones but they just dont really stacknup to say dark star or s8.

Yeah, I really appreciate your insights on the Dragon fruit, it was helpful for me making decisions about next season, taking out a lot and replacing. I was able to see and taste Dark Star this season and it was a good fruit. My favorite is still S8 but we have to build the fan base for it. I don't care about the size of fruit, flavor is most important, but the market is set up around that, even for avocados.

I think for the avocado varieties to be profitable for commercial growers the packers have to be set up to support them and that is one of the biggest reasons the Gwen failed, along with growth habit I've heard. A local middleman is now getting "Gem" free from older growers who tried to go modern and plant them, and now are not finding markets for them. I know the UC is still promoting that variety as the successor to Hass. 

You have to be creative and build your own market, maybe local CRFG members would be good customers for your unusual varieties. I would like to see you be successful in getting them out to the public. Maybe a local Farmer's Market in your area would like to have them to promote "locally grown fruit.". I hate the "single variety" mentality of the markets. Reed was able to break through and now Fuerte and Bacon seem to have their fans. I'm seeing more flexibility in the packers we work with. They seem to understand that having more varieties could be a selling point for them.

For us, Ettinger has a habit of overflowering when first transplanted but if you knock all those off and let it grow it tends to bear early and easily for us after a few years. Fruit gets very big though, is a bit of a problem. Have to get people used to that or sell by the piece. We're dealing with high chlorides here so that actually limits our production somewhat, wish we could get better quality water, but it is what it is.

Hi Janet,
Yes, I think that is correct. The problem with getting an exemption is that you will run into the problem Brad mentioned with your buyers. I've been to so many of the seminars, because I don't want to run into that problem. I think it is making it more difficult for small producers to sell their produce. I don't think buyers go to those seminars but they do get scared by the regulators. I think most of the problems are due to sloppy practices while harvesting but there could be some contamination by watering, and that listeria outbreak on melons was found to be caused by the washing off the melons, the water was harboring pathogens due to the way it traveled through the system.  Some of the problems are caused by the way the fruit is stored. I don't know anything about Brad's operation, but ours is small, 7 acres, some "dense" planting, some at the old spacing of avocados.  It's not easy to sell wholesale, the new regulations are making the buyers more skittish.  One of our grocery customers actually came out to see our operation. Fortunately he liked what he saw.

The other problem is that getting the exemption is like getting the "Ag price" for your water, it comes with restrictions. There is always a possibility of there being a problem. If you operate under the guidelines required, especially if you are inspected and certified anyway, you are more likely to not have the stress of having your production monitored or shut down.

We also start out each year hoping to make as much as we can, mainly to cover water costs, and be in that category of needing to follow the rules, sometimes the conditions take that away ( like 119F days and weeks of over 100F) which make fruit drops a not so fun part of our season.

I think the question of "what is your favorite avocado?" is a really important one. For a small grower, determining what to plant can be a difficult decision, because once you plant, you have to wait for the trees to become large enough to produce fruit for a return, and the market could change in the meantime. As growers and hobbyists we often forget that the work of marketing your crop is every but as important as growing it, I know I do, it's my favorite part to grow it. I'm learning to do a better job at marketing so I can be more efficient in finding a home for all of the fruit.

I'm also thinking that maybe grafting scions of the more sensitive varieties to more hardy for our climate and growing conditions ( like Zutano) might help us get more of those varieties that seem to be in vogue into production.

Brad, so far my favorite is actually "Marvel", followed by "Gem" and "Reed", and "Fuerte", but I would love to be able to buy and taste other varieties, there is another grower in Fallbrook, I think, who does a monthly avocado gift box and he uses different varieties to fill in the times when the more well know varieties like Hass are not available. Once he had a booth at the Fallbrook Avocado Festival with so many different varieties, that was really fun to see.  https://avocadomonthly.com/avocado-schedule/

Thanks @JCorte I should have mentioned her, she and her husband were early mentors. Some of our first plants came from them. Maybe that is where we got our fondness for Sugar Dragons from because they were so enthusiastic, but I totally agree with them! I really love the fruit!

Thanks for the resource! Great to see a "modern" one! I'll have to get in touch with the person you suggest! Lots of great posts from that person here in the thread!

Thanks to everyone for starting and contributing to this thread, it is a wealth of information! I have read the entire thread and have really learned a lot about the history, and care of these plants. I have a question for everyone, where do you go to get your plant material that you trust to really know what they are in this day and age?

I am in North County San Diego (southern California) and I know at one time we had some great options, but have lost some of them. I am looking for specific varieties to try and fine tune my pollination program and also to experiment with breeding. I've been growing for about ten years and am trying to make our ranch as productive as it can be. After going through multiple seasons and pollinating strategies, I am learning that it's not only what we do, but weather factors that influence our success. I have one cross at the seedling stage. I am trying to find the most productive and flavorful varieties for our micro climate here. So I am looking for specific varieties like Neitzel that I have read about.  I have been using S8 as a pollinator and it has served us well, but I have read that some White varieties can increase the size of the fruit and the customers are often interested in that! To me flavor is top consideration. If we could increase the size of S8 it would be perfect!  We have brought a seed grown Megalanthus to flowering so that is exciting but we are not sure that will be viable in our climate or very productive.

I have one white fleshed variety that came without an ID, propagated and planted around the grove, and it wasn't very productive this last year so I am considering removing or grafting something else to them. Cal Poly Pomona has been my best source and in years past, Dragon Fruit Festivals put on by UC with Ramiro, and friends, and CRFG, (but often we get ID mistakes that way). Even though Home Depot is selling plants, we can't rely on them to properly ID theirs. Thanks to all of the pioneers for sharing their experiences!