The Tropical Fruit Forum

I would love to aid you in your quest! Do you know where I could get seeds or seedlings?

https://reallygoodplants.com/

Well the plot thickens as it has recently been discovered that Lardizabala mimics nearby plants just like Boquila. It not only mimics leaves but just yesterday l observed it mimicking the growth form of a support tree as well. It's a rather long story but to give an overview: l have mature vines of Lardizabala growing to the top of a large Quercus suber (cork oak) at my back door.  These vines are almost 40years old & have been fruiting for about 20 years. They  are nearly 50' up to the top of the tree. I have always considered Lardizabala to be a species with quite variable leaves an observation which l put down to genetic variability,  that is until a recent trip to Tasmania where l saw a very different looking Lardizabala with very large roundish leaves with totally entire margins. As this looked so different from mine at home l obtained 2 seedling plants from the source & returned home with them. When l compared the photos of the one in Tasmania to mine l suddenly realized that the leaves were mimicking nearby plants & in fact do this just like Boquila does.

 I contacted Ernesto Gianoli in Chile who discovered the phenomenon in Boquila & sent him many photos & he concurs that Lardizabala is indeed performing the same stunt as Boquila! Further he told me that it is an accepted fact among the local traditional population in the areas where Lardizabala grows that the best flavored & quality fruit is dependent on the tree species it grows on! This may seem hard to swallow but this same species is making both cork oak leaves & Lapageria rosea leaves on the one vine at my place. It even mimics the curl of the oak &  the texture of the Lapageria.

 I like the flavor of 'oak grown' Lapageria, it's  got a nice, if subtle sweetness if you're prepared to swirl & spit to separate the pulp from the seeds! It certainly has more flavor than any Akebia l've eaten & also Stauntonia hexaphylla which is pretty bland too.

I haven't tasted Boquila as l have recently struck cuttings of one clone only, & sown seed which l hope is viable as it's taken many years to obtain here.

I wonder if the sweetness is correlated to leaf size. Perhaps bigger leaves gather more sun, and make sweeter fruits?

Thanks for the link! Maybe it's time to try my luck with seeds again. I've tried a few times with no success...but maybe this time! 

I had seen a youtube video of someone in Northern California (I think Bay area to be specific) with a fruiting one so they likely can handle frosts to a certain extent.

Joe Hewitt had one that lasted in the ground for at least 6 years in Los Gatos. It grew only a few feet tall in that time. I planted mine in the ground 8 months ago in a protected location, and it died very quickly in the winter. The cold tolerance seems to be variable. They don’t seem to love it here.

Yeah, I've heard about it before with Lucuma:

"Whip or cleft grafts are used in spring when stems are 4-6mm diameter, and there are some reports of improved 'take' by applying rooting hormone (auxin) to the grafted area to accelerate cambial and callus growth."

https://www.rarefruitclub.org.au/Lucuma.htm

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This thread has been really helpful!

Aside from patent, there exists a second route of plant IP protection: the plant variety protection act. If a varietal is registered with the USDA plant variety protection office, it is similarly illegal to propagate this material without the consent of the registered owner. Surprisingly few plants are registered; there are no mangos protected in this way. 

https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/plant-variety-protection

As for patent protection, pretty much any form of propagation, including any form of grafting or generation of a clone, is illegal without the owners consent or agreed upon licensing fee. Methods of cloning include (but are probably not limited to):

Planting rhizomes (bits of root)
Taking cuttings (twigs)
Layering
Planting bulbs
Grafting and budding
Division
Using corms
Planting slips
Using runners
Nucellar embryos
Planting apomictic seeds (seeds that don’t go through meiosis)

Therefore, cloning by using a polyembryonic seed is illegal without the consent of the IP holder.

However, if the seedling you generate is not a clone of the parent, then it is not IP protected, and you yourself could patent the new seedling.

https://larsonpatentlaw.com/blog/some-points-about-plant-patents/

Bananas! I’ve killed them 3 years in a row. My neighbor had the same experience. Other people somewhat near me seem to make it work, but it’s a bit of a money pit for me. It’s time to try something else.

Mangos. I have tried these quite a lot, and no success. I had 30 seedlings, and 29 have died. The one that is holding out may be good…but if it dies, so will all of my mango efforts.

Garcinia of any kind. I kill all of them. They die from too much sun, too much cold, or sometimes for almost no reason at all. I’m finished with garcinia.

Miracle berries. I had 20 seedlings, and 19 are dead. The last one alive is the one that I gave to my friend, and he found out that they only live if you give them expensive filtered water. Sorry berries, you’re not for me! Palm grass or whale grass works well here!

Yellow dragonfruit. I might be able to keep one alive in just the right spot, but wow they are much more sensitive than other dragon fruits.

Kadsura. I actually have 2 of them going, but I think I won’t enjoy the fruit.  . Let me know if anyone wants to trade locally!

Lychee. I almost tried these, and my local friend has a tree. I read too much about these being difficult to fruit (both amateur and professionally). I decided to give up before starting. Sticking with Kohala longan!

Bromeliads. I’ve killed too many. I’ve told myself that I can now only grow pineapples from the top of the fruit. I don’t lose any money if I kill them. If I can finally fruit one, I’ll try a white pineapple or their bromeliad.

OK! I dug out my old notes on this one, and learned a few more things! I really appreciate the discussion on this thread. It's really important for us to know the safety of our hobby .

Pomper et al. looked at the toxicity of soursop, cherimoya, pawpaw varietals, peach, and banana: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf9018239. They measured toxicity by finding the amount of extract needed to kill 50% of a brine shrimp population. Among many things, they found:
1)   that cherimoya flesh was 100x less toxic than soursop, and is almost as benign as peaches (yay!).
2)   that some pawpaws were 100x more toxic than soursop, and that some pawpaws were about as toxic as soursop.

The amount of annonacin in some pawpaws is truly staggering! But, it’s this dramatic figure which likely proves the point that this is rather well tolerated by >99% of the population. A homeowner binge-eating fruit from their pawpaw tree could end up eating ~3lbs of pawpaw in a day (or 3~5 pawpaw fruits). Assuming a typical soursop weighs 6lbs, that’s roughly like eating 50 soursop fruits in a single day! A single tree could yield 30~80 pounds of fruit, so that could amass to eating the equivalent of 500~1300 soursops per tree. That’s a dose higher than eating a full 6lbs of soursop every day *and* drinking the soursop leaf tea every day for a year, but administered all in 1~2 months! If that’s the case, fruit fanatics and pawpaw lovers in the american midwest should be suffering just as much or more than the people of french west indies due to the Indiana banana!

However, there are definitely a small population of people who ARE very strongly affected by this toxin: people with Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). Developing this extremely unfortunate condition is mostly strongly linked to genetics. In caucasians, the insertion/deletion polymorphism in intron 9 of MAPT is associated with this risk. In Guadeloupe, it's likely some other genetic issue (https://movementdisorders.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/mds.22297). Caparros-Lefebvre found in 2005 that younger people who were diagnosed with PSP greatly diminished their PSP symptoms when they stopped consuming annona products. I don't have access to the original paper, but you can see it on slide 14 here: http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/PDF/AcetoUpdate3.pdf.

Since the caucasian farmer in the 2020 paper had been diagnosed with PSP, and likely had the H1 genetic factor, he definitely should not have been consuming annona fruits or products. It's unfortunate that this wasn't more well known! He lived to be 80 years old, which is pretty good, but he could have lived longer. What he likely experienced was a huge surge in symptoms every time he consumed pawpaw. Since symptoms were only observed to diminish in younger people with PSP when stopping annona products, he may have felt a permanent increase in the severity of his symptoms whenever he consumed pawpaw. It's unfortunate that he didn't make the connection that his symptoms got worse when he ate the fruit.

I went down the rabbit hole on this a few years ago, and posted my findings. You can find most post if you search for it.

If you look at the incidence rate of Parkinson’s in the population that the document studied, the incidence rate of Parkinson’s on the island is not higher than the incidence rate of Parkinson’s in mainland USA. Therefore, the consumption of annona fruits does not cause Parkinson’s.

HOWEVER, if you do have Parkinson’s, it will make it worse! You will develop a “parkinsonism”, which is a more severe and less treatable version of Parkinson’s. The incidence rate of parkinsonisms in that island is much higher than in mainland USA. That said, there is some evidence that if you stop eating annona, you downgrade back to regular Parkinson’s.

As for how it affects other forms of illness, nobody knows! But, all fruits and veggies make their own insecticides to some degree, so we throw those dice anytime we eat anything plant based.

Feijoa is rather low water, and generates a very tasty evergreen hedge in a few years.