The Tropical Fruit Forum

Champagne


Sampled a wind-damaged fruit yesterday and it was good, especially if you prefer more of the champagney taste.  Going to see how far these earlier fruit can go without getting too bland, since the netting seems to be working against any critters.

We'll be doing similar trip starting the 17th.  Hoping to snag all the mangoes up front, but marked a couple extra stops along the way in case.  Haven't vetted them all yet, and haven't finished looking for stuff in the later half, but possibly:

Walter Zill
Carribean Plants & Produce
Excalibur
Tropical Acres

Naga
Truly Tropical
YP
Hatcher

Hidden Acres
Alegria
Palmettto Bay Farmers Market

Fairchild

Pine Island
Siggi

Fruit & Spice
Mango Men
Serendib
Lyons

Robert Is Here
Redland Market Village

Grimal Grove

Any duds here, or other notables?

Great service, product, & packaging even!  Greatly appreciate the bonuses as well.  Barely got them all grafted last night before the rain came in.  With all the attention to details, if I ever found myself in Alabama, I'd have to make a stop at your place just to see what you've done.

We have those cheap steel pergolas from HD, in dark brown too.  Passion fruit & chayote grow on it fine.  The vines end up shading the metal anyways.  Some small DF in pots also try to climb it.  Of course we don't get the temp extremes to really test either end of the range.

I'd consider Fullerton pretty hot.  I grew up in San Gabriel, and Fullerton was a small step up warmer.  Sort of miss the heat.  Now I live in sweaters vs t-shirts.

Hmm, test scores vs happiness

Thanks Kaz for the tips.  I had already trimmed the original branches a bit to stimulate more pushes, plus tied them a bit lower to reduce any apical competition (not sure if that applies to citrus as much as other fruits).  I was wondering how long to keep the remainder since I want to keep the roots growing until the grafts can sustain them, so the 6 month target is useful.  So far, just rubbing off other buds for now.  Luckily I do have 3 other bushes with grafts also.  I did lose 2 grafts recently to some animal breaking them, but found 1 early enough to regraft it elsewhere.  Which reminds me to chicken wire the remaining ones just in case.

Oh, i have to use the link below the input box, not the one above it.

I don't know of other options other than ccpp, since that's all I'm allowed to use.  Dekopon is listed as Shiranui (https://citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/CRC4249.html).  Looks like it is unavailable currently.  Gold Nugget (https://citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/goldnugget.html) can usually be found around easily, even in our home depots. e.g. https://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/products/copy-of-gold-nugget-mandarin-patented?variant=3756748668941.  Given the costs of shipping from ccpp, I think it would be more cost-effective to get the plant from any nursery and pull any scions from that, unless you have other budwood choices anyways.

This was pretty much all the culls:


It definitely is more like dehydration than rot.  The spots are all dry and tough like jerky, vs mushy.  I wasn't really thinking purple when looking at them, but perhaps the earlier stages are more purplish.  I wish I would have noticed sooner, but they were mostly on the upper facing sides.  Only when one branch got bent down due to the weight did I spot it and then pulled out the ladder to check them all.

Purple spot gives a lot more google hits, so hopefully I can fix my practices.  This study suggests a correlation with night temperature, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248478075_Purple_spot_in_loquat_Eriobotrya_japonica_Lindl_is_associated_to_changes_in_flesh-rind_water_relations_during_fruit_development, which has been pretty low.  Even if we recently have been hitting 70s in the day, it's still been 30-40s at night.  Plus, it mentions elevated sugar levels affecting the osmotic balance, and the sugar changes kick in mostly around color break.  Also, thinning increases the risks and I did a little of that this year to see how big some can get.  Like this study found incidence increases with increasing leaf area to fruit ratio: https://www.cabi.org/isc/abstract/20043000289.  Some studies suggest supplements (Ca/N) prior to color break, so perhaps I should be feeding earlier, but not sure on that part yet.  Conversely, could recent rains have diluted levels, particularly since I have very sandy soil. 

The variety is Champagne, but there are a couple of Kaz's Big Jim and some of those fruit were also affected.  I don't see any spots on leaves.  Just some occasional tips and some burnt margins on tender growth.

I was thinking possibly also sunburn, since all the affected areas are sun-oriented sides mostly.  Cut open a couple and it's just leathery & dried up on the spots.  No rot going through.  We don't normally get a lot of heat, but Monday did hit 88F.  If so, would it just be a matter of shading, or can I prevent it by watering more?  I do tend to stay on the drier side rather than overwatering.  I'd also be bummed to learn that the fruit were that sensitive to such short heat spikes, but it would be better than having to deal with some other infection.

Trying to identify the issue and possible remedies.  Haven't seen this before, but the trees have just started fruiting for the last 3 years, and haven't had many fruit till now.  Sunken areas are dry & stiff rather than mushy.  Would guess more of a scab than a rot, but my google-fu isn't turning up any matching images.  Not seeing any major issues on the foliage.  A few burnt tips here and there. 

This looks like it may be starting on some other fruits

Looking good!  I'm already seeing some fungus on the pot edges, so hopefully, I can dry out most of the top to contain the spread.  When you said that feeding didn't seem to help, did you try it?  I'm not at the point where I would try it yet, but I'd be scared of overdoing it.  Then again, I haven't burned any of the smaller TCs.  Although, I haven't run a control either to compare fed vs unfed either.  I use DG FP for most of my tropicals as it's pretty much no-fuss.