The Tropical Fruit Forum

California Rare Fruit Growers association (of Southern California) is the BEST place for you to get what you want. A membership may land you in an appropriate (sour type) well rooted plant for a 'song'! Please try to browse their net. Triphal

Thank you 'Mangaba' for helping me to put these two of my yesterday's picks of pawpaws from the planted three home garden trees. I will wait for the weekend to publish more pics with the help of my daughter. Thanks again.  Triphal

I have harvested over five hundred (500) pawpaws so far out of my three (3) trees.  Unfortunately I am unable to send it to other than the email addresses through my PC, Galaxy tablet and iphone! I wish some TFF member would be able to publish them on the TFF. If interested send me a pm. Triphal

Found wild in the woods of the Coastal Karnataka. Food for the wildlife. Photo taken about 2 weeks ago.
Triphal

When did you start selling these seeds?  It takes awhile for many varieties of Garcinia seeds to fruit in in 7 to 10 years.

Pawpaws mostly has purple flowers but have about 15% greenish yellow flowers. When the fruits first sets up most of the non-pollinated flowers crumple dry out and fall. The yellow flowers take longer time to wither and drop. Pawpaw flowers are not sweet smelling but stinky, the reason for repelling bees.

My 9 yrs. old grafted tree is in zone 6b. It started fruiting 5 yrs. ago. Three years ago after moderate pruning (unnecessary) I found black spots at the cut ends of the branches. Later found black areas in few leaves (like in your photographs) which I initially thought as related to the oozing from the pruning areas. Some or all of those leaves turned yellow and shed. Got worried. Later a colleague of mine told me it's from a caterpillar infestation. But I never chanced to see one there by then! Tree is growing healthy, 20+ feet in height now and skinny branches with full of fruits. Since we planted this tree for wild life we do not harvest. But have tasted in November, 5 years ago. Two inches round, mushy, very sweet and with 0 to 4 seeds.  Probably zone 4 to 9 may be ideal for growing this tree which is it's natural habitat area. This may help.

From 1940s till mid 1950s M.dioica was available from only the harvested ones from the forest and wooded areas during rainy season and not cultivated in the ghats and plains of the Kanara districts. Barely a few sects consumed then. The propagation is through seeds by the wild life / birds and mammals. Once the seeds germinate the strong root system helps to spring back to vines in the each rainy seasons. These wild raw fruits are tastier than the nowadays cultivated ones. What was it called in Kerala before 1960s?

Grown wild along side of the river and creeks here. The higher water table should be easy for the tap root (main) to reach. Or else like I do, surface irrigate often.
Pollination will be a big problem. I planted two (2) grafted trees almost 3 feet apart and a seedling nine feet away from them. I put eight feet metal posts and covered with old cotton sheets from direct sun light exposure for nearly four years. They are about 20' tall.
Since bees don't pollinate I have hand pollinated + I have kept whole fish put inside metal nets to rot and thereby attract flies and other insects which help pollination. Fruiting has been heavy this year and I had to prune some branches and bunches of fruits.
Fruits are not marketable as the shelf life is a few days. MOREOVER you have to harvest only ripened fruits it is labor consuming and not economical. Fruit ripening will start in September / October. I may be able to save and send some seeds for you AT NO COST TO YOU if Portugal Agriculture Department allows importation of Foreign seeds.

In June 1985 the Livestock Research Station in Tiruvazhamkunnu in Palghat ( now called Palakkad ), Kerala initiated a field experiment planting eight fast growing multi purpose trees including Artocarpus hirsutus. Each of the eight species were planted separately in a lot of 20 m x 20 m and at 2 m x 2 m from each other.
In October 1993 the mean height of the Artocarpus hirsutus were 5.5 m and the age of the trees were 8 years and 6 months.

Is that of Areca palm seedling in the back ground of the second picture? Is it missing in the background of the accompanying first picture? I have planted in zone 13 in Latitude 13 degrees 17 ' 09" N and 74 degrees 44' 40" E in ideal humid, hot tropical monsoon climatic area, two ( not one as I mentioned before ) seedlings of A. hirsutus 6 1/2 years ago. They are about 10 feet tall with a diameter of about 4 inches. At the same time I have planted two A. altilis, one A. camanci and 4 A. heterophylus. Most of them are about 20 feet in height and already fruiting. A. hirsutus seedlings will probably fruit after 15 to 20 years.
One of the two A. hirsutus ( I have to find during my next visit where the other one is ) my brother planted about 45 years ago is about 50 to 55 feet in height and about 12" in diameter. It started fruiting about 15 to 20 years ago. And the yearly temperature there is between 70 F to 90 F with high humidity and ample monsoon rain.