The Tropical Fruit Forum

Went to Seacrest Boulevard today to pick up my Carpe Diem mango tree. Had a very nice visit with Tropical Chris today letting her know that I feel honored and privileged to have this Legacy seedling she has produced. She seems genuinely enthusiastic about the flavor of her new mango version. She also shared with my friend and I that she will have several unique varieties from across the pond and Windward Islands but that is as much as I'm going to say. When the timing is right she will share an elaborate but there's exciting times ahead at Truly Tropicals

Carpe diem to seize the moment to pluck the day

Quote from: bovine421 on March 30, 2023, 03:53:23 PM

After studying many images I've come to the conclusion that Riser height should be uniformly the same height. I found this very interesting video worthy of watching

https://youtu.be/DgOgBCZOoQI

I've never seen anyone alternate riser height. Pressure regulators are pretty neat. I was just in a grove with a large elevation change and the owner was showing me that each sub-main had a pressure regulator on it. It kept the whole grove at 25 psi instead of 15 at the top of the hill and 50 at the bottom.

Yeah it was probably overthinking the overlapping Collision of irrigation spray. I was thinking if one was cascading down on top of the other might be effective. Just out of curiosity iwill set up two prototypes and test it out with a catch cans. Since it's a small system I was going to put pressure regulators at each individual riser to get the maximum amount of wobblers per Zone. But one on the sub main line would be more cost-effective. For the 1 gallon and 3 gallons Maybe up to seven the wobblers will work nicely but the amount of water needed to irrigate one acre is mind boggling. Anything larger then the 7 gallons  individual pot watering is so much more efficient. I recently saw an article about raising cantaloupes hydroponically but one of my friends talk me out of it. Which wasn't too hard when he mentioned it's just as needy as a saltwater fish tank

https://www.hortidaily.com/article/6035144/hydroponic-high-wire-melons-taking-off-globally/

Quote from: bovine421 on March 29, 2023, 05:39:03 AM

My orange sherbet over the last two seasons has had partial bloom. Does orange essence bloom more consistently than OS?

Not really from what we’ve seen.

Thank you Alex! As far as the Citrus profile OS and PPK are as about as good as it gets in consistency of bloom. I still have the Lemon Zest that you grafted onto Piva for me. It is having the desired effect of throttling LZ a tad bit. I guess with adding Super Julie and Ah Ping and maybe Rosi Gold I will have fine tuned My Personal Collection as much as possible. The only thing I may do differently next season is use Dynapro bloom.

My orange sherbet over the last two seasons has had partial bloom. Does orange essence bloom more consistently than OS?

Mother-in-law wants me to build a cage or pen to put the pineapples in when they're getting close to ripening. Her friend just lost a very large pineapple to raccoons😡

Someone just sent me this don't know if it's useful or helpful but they say they use this on their pineapples

Here’s my pics, I just broke them up in half and repotted 2 weeks ago and already fruiting and flowering. The fruits get to about twice that size. There were from seed.

If the planting date in Florida is October for transplants imported from Canada. When do you think I should start my seeds indoors in September? I've had it a hundred strawberry plants donated to my experiment to see if I can get them to survive through the summer in shade. The best I can tell the going rate for plants are 80 cents a piece four times expensive as galatian remembers from back in the day🙂

This has me motivated to double the size of my pineapple plantation

My grafting list consists of Ah Ping reasoning I'm going to graft it onto the west side of cotton candy which will be visible from my sliding glass door. It is ultra early and has a beautiful red fruit Pleasant to the eye. Secondly some more Dupuis Saigon on two large Valencia Pride. Reasoning it is early delicious and highly recommended by Walter. Thirdly Sunrise on large Valencia Pride. Reasoning it is said to be a good alternative to Jakarta for folks in the interior. Lastly Super Julie in a big way onto ST. Reasoning easy bloomer that I fell in love with last season. At this point in my life I want consistent bloomers because time is precious. In addendum to lastly I acquired a Starch mango tree from Lara Farms that I'm waiting to be able to get budwood. And there's a local seedling of Blackie that came from Jamaica many years ago. That seems by the shape of the fruit to have been cross pollinated with Julie. This will be it's second season of fruiting. Hoping this season confirms last. My friends tree seems uniquely special. So I may be grafting this onto a ital provision tree

Dupuis Saigon budwood got from Walter last season

Has anyone grown alpine strawberries from seed in Florida instead of getting transplants from up North. 

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/propagate-alpine-strawberries-21957.html

https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/HS1326

From The Extension: Strawberries for central Florida
Juanita PopenoeFor the Daily Commercial
Strawberries are grown as an annual crop in Florida over the winter.
Have you ever wanted to grow your own strawberries so you can pick those luscious berries at peak ripeness off your own plants instead of the practically tasteless hard ones you get at the store? You can grow your own, but it is not easy and it is very different from how they are grown in the north.


Strawberries are grown as an annual plant in Florida
Strawberry transplants from the north (usually Canada) that have been cold stored and exposed to short day lengths are planted in September-October in Florida so they will start flowering quickly. They will continue to produce flowers and fruit in cycles through April if cool temperatures continue.

Bo, my Kent's in the same boat.  New leaves covered with Anthracnose too. 
Had busy month & neglected copper spraying.  Powdery mildew & less flowers then new leaves is another downer but anyway, you mentioned a systemic a while back that worked great.  What was it? 
I'm willing to drench with something if it works for next year.

Ed

Ed I'll PM you when I get home with some info of what I got but I've been asked not to discuss commercial fungicides on social media because of fungus resistance by some South Floridians
I brought the subject up for clarification since someone sent me Hars video.

Has anyone had experience or an opinion on this variety🙂

I know to spray before bloom then during bloom but after fruit set if there is a small speck or Dot of anthracnose. Can you systemically eradicate it with commercial fungicides or will it spread to the fruit much later during its development. I've been asked not to talk about what I use but it has two modes of action and is commercial and I rotate after two applications of each fungicide in my Arsenal. March winds are problematic for spraying.

I currently have 5 grades for ease of flowering for mango in south Florida:. A few examples provided with each category. Some are disputable as to which group they belong but this is a rough projection based on recent past behavior. Stem age plays a major role as well, and I can’t emphasize enough that you want to get your pruning done before the end of August here to avoid late flushes of growth, and to avoid over feeding the trees to lessen the likelihood of that as well.

Grade 1/Very Easy : These are precocious, and frequently blooming before the New Year regardless of what kind of weather we see. Rosigold, Edward, Dwarf Hawaiian, Rosa

/Grade 2/Easy : these can achieve decent blooms off less than a week below 60F depending on the age of their stems. A solid week will make most of them achieve majority blooms.
Angie, Pickering, Ah Ping, Jean Ellen, Ice Cream, Super Julie

Grade 3/ Medium some bloom after a week or less but not majority of canopy depending on stem age. 10 days with lows below 60F is typically enough to get a majority bloom.
Haden, Bailey’s Marvel, Glenn, most Thai mangos and most old Florida varieties

Grade 4/ Difficult Will flower inconsistently unless they receive multi-week cold fronts. Usually very unprecocious. Sweet Tart, Alphonso, Mulgoba, Peach Cobbler, Bombay

Grade 5/ Extremely Difficult/ Near Impossible These likely require 2+ weeks *untinterupted* lows in the 50s/40s plus optimal stem age and 6+ years of total tree maturity to achieve full blooms here(growth flush needs to be hardened off before end of August and cold front must be January or later). In reality, Most winters here they’ll either fail to bloom completely or just throw a couple panicles here or there. Sindhri, Dasheri, Gilas, Anything from northern India or Pakistan.




Groups 3 and 4 are the problem for people in Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade, and maybe even the Treasure Coast now too. Due to a lot of trees in the nursery trade being in those categories.

On the other hand, trees in group 4 and 5 should do well in California and some group 4 maybe central /West Florida

Which grade would Sonpari fall into. Contemplating on ordering some budwood to graft onto my two remaining warm winter bloom hesitant trees 🙂
I know two seasons doesn't make a trend but on the northwest side of those trees they seem to be dormant and hesitant to Bloom so to hedge my bet I may graft a few scions of a different variety but I'm very glad that John51 started this thread. His timing is impeccable