The Tropical Fruit Forum

Here in the Azores i rarely have hours below 10c and I get very good flowering on the cherimoyas.

Thank you for the feedback! The weak flowering may be due to the time i tried to promote it, i felt it was a bit late at the time. I will do the procedure around may or june next year! Will try to keep the greenhouse a bit cooler for a bit more, but not as cool as i anticipated. 

My cherimoya trees did not flower as profusely as last year, i did a defoliation and a slight prune kinda late, at the end of july, one of them did not produce a single flower, 5h3 other one had around 20. They are big plants and did had a very strong flower flush last year, when one of them set 50 fruit, the other one had 3.
The only thing i can think of ,that was different pas winter, was that i did the heating system in the greenhouse, which ended up very eficient at keeping the lowest temp in there at around 10-15 C ,most of the time, whereas for the winter of 2021-22, i had a sloppy heating system that kept the lowest temps anywhere around 5-10C, sometimes colder. The summer after this first cold winter for the plants in the greenhouse, that is when they had the strong bloom, after a defoliation and pruning in june.

Now i do have alot of controw over the temperature in the greenhouse right now, curntly i havent yet  turned on the heating system, because of the cherymoyas, in hopes of letting them accumulate a bit of chill hours. I dont know how long should i maintain low temperatures in there, today i had 6.2C inside, i do have other more tender things in there ,thats why i wonder if the weak bloom was because i kept it too warm for them over winter, or maybe it was due to the late prune and defoliation that i did?
Anyone growing cherimoya in a tropical place, where you dont get temperatures  below 10C and are still able to fruit cherimoya?

Some pictures, quite bisy inside. Tropicaltoba, the radiators are on several pictures, they are on one side of the paths, a nuisance for plant management, but i'll deal with it for several months only per year. The pots are not quite visible, but around 1/3 of the plants inside are there, gust for winter.
The plastic barrew is filled with water, for watering. Its very close to the radiator, so when i turn on the heating, the water gets heated and i have warm water to water my plants with.

Plantinyum, are your radiators on the ground? Do you have space for a ceiling mounted heater? I’ve got infrared heaters mounted on the North wall that work very well for my greenhouse design.  They can be a bit pricey to buy/run.

, yes ,they are on the ground, i remove them in summer. Will post pictures one of theese days. I probably have the space for a ceiling heater, depending on the size of it. But i dont really need one anymore ,the current heating system is working wonderfull, with the expens only being the wood each year, but its a connection to the existing heating system of the house, so they are both fueld from one burning pit. I dont see electricity as a good option anymore, now that i have this setup.

As of now i would have to pick cherimoya! I am a succer for tropical fruits, also love passion fruit, salak, mango, mamey etc.
Its a pitty that my cherimoyas had a shy blooming cycle this year, i only have 5 fruit. Its good that my purple edumis had like 200+ fruits to compensate for the lazy cherimoya year.

I am in zone 7, alot cooler than zone 10 , but the problem is the same. I generally open manually the greenhouse, in spring and in fall, when the day temps are warm but nights are chilly.
The big con to this is that there has to be someone, to open the greenhouse at the wright time. Recently , while i was at work , my mom forgot to open the greenhouse on a sunny day, outside temp was like 25C or more, imagine what was inside! I come back from work and opened the door and nearly got skin burns from the hot temperature, lol ,just kidding ! 😅 it was still very hot inside, with a ground level temp of around 30C . Several plants were left with scorched leaves, after this day, my cherimoya shed her fruitlets a few days after.
After that i bought one of those oil or whatever filled window openers, i mounted it and i should say i am pleased with how it works, having it working for severaw days now. I ordered another one.

Now, for a zone 10, i would assume, depending on what is growing inside, that your greenhouse may have to stay at least partially open most of the time, with full closing only on cold events.

Seem like here in BG we have an overly extended summer this year. Havent really monitored with acuracy the temperatures all that much, but we havent had a day that wasnt at least 20C as of this date, alot of 25C days this october. Nights are just now getting chillier at about 5 C , the lowest i had at my place was 2C, with a light frost, only on the tops of cars. Very dry october also, havent had a single proper rainy day, only 2-3 drizzle like events.
Anyway i moved in all that had to be moved, bot in the house and in the greenhouse. Now i am wondering if i should have left my potted cherimoya plants out a bit more, to get their chill requirements met, i may take them out for a bit more cold.
The greenhouse hasnt ever been so cramped up, i hate having to move it there, radiators that are on the paths are also a big pain in the ass, no way around all this, i decided to cramp the plants in the sunnier greenhouse, as oppose to having them in the dark house.
I will post pics when i can.

Sweet! In every cluster of flowers, there are a few bigger ones which i suppose are female.
The second plant, right next to this one is also starting to make flower buds, but it does not have this cluster tipe inflorecence from the start, only 2-3 buds are visible, i think it will be a female.

Jealous of all those fruit, mine is just now having its first buds. A very late comer this year. Anyway ,i dont have pollen from my alata, so i will not have any fruit as awlays, i will self the flowers, but i am sure, there wont be anything. Whatever strain of this passiflora that i have, is self sterile. 

 My order came today, i took 50 liters of both pumice and lava. The lava looks good, the chunks are not too big and are uniform in size. I did order the pumice at a smaller grain size, now i think i should have took it at the larger chunk size.
Does the pumice look too fine, will it be ok?

Pumice





Lava

This is my mix for pretty much everything:
* peat
* sand
* perlite
* pumice
* clay pellets
* charcoal
* worm casting
* mycorrhiza
* azomite

Rate of each dependence on the plant type.

Thanks, i have about half of those ingredients, been wanting to make me some charcoal for a while, i could use the one from the fire pit of my heating system, but since we use fuels to light the fire usually, dont want to risk it.
I must remember when i go to a camping site, to clean up the fire pits in the area...

I am looking into adding one or possibly both of those products to my potting soil for tropicals, bonsai and other more valuable plants. Should i use one or the other, or is it best to use both as an equal part in a potting mix?  I was thinking of getting just the lava rock, but i saw there is also pumice available.
What is your reccomendation?