The Tropical Fruit Forum

I have a Peach Cobbler that is two years old and planted in the ground here in Orlando Fl. It's surrounded by many other varieties. Not only was it in full bloom after two years but it took a major cold hit when the temp went down to 27 degrees here for several hours. This temp wiped out several of my 1 yr old mangos and got trees that were even placed right next to the house. The Peach Cobbler was unprotected and in the coldest spot on the property. Yep, killed some smaller branches but it has the quickest recovery time of all my 20 varieties - Mallika being a good second. I'm impressed. That being said, I have yet to taste the fruit since the cold killed my flowers.

I already have a Day and want to get another avocado tree.  Which one should I choose?

I have a small sweet tamarind tree in the front yard -- about 3-4 ft tall and a trunk about a 1/4 wide. It got zapped by unseasonal temps of 28-29 for several hours over the course of two nights. It immediately dropped all leaves and is a stick. The tree is still pliable and there appears to be green under the bark.

Do small tamarind trees typically recover from such severe cold damage?  The sad thing is that I didn't protect it at all because I was told that tamarind was pretty cold hardy and I expected the temps to not go below 32F -- I'm on top of a hill so the microclimate stinks here (it's typically colder than the local weather report.).

Hoping my mango trees and lychees make it. Everything else is icing.

In the northern part of Orlando, we hit 29-30F for about 4 hours early this morning. This is the first time that I offered no protection since I didn't think we would drop below 32F -- I was wrong. Most of the trees have about the same level of protection from the cold -- no micro climates on my property. I've surveyed the damage so far amongst the tropicals:

NO DAMAGE:

Michelia Alba -- no damage (surprised)
Large peach cobbler mango -- no damage
Mallika mango (small tree)  (no damage at all)
Jaboticaba -- no damage
Sapodilla -- no damage (all 5 varieties the same)
Day avocado -- no damage
Wurtz avocado -- no damage
white sapote (sue belle) -- looks great, no damage at all
tamarind -- no damage
Grumichama -- no damage
Barbados cherry -- no damage
Canistel -- no damage
achairu (achacha) -- no damage
pitangatube -- no damage
pitanga -- no damage
pitomba -- no damage
Australian beach cherry -- no damage
guava -- no damage
cherry of the rio grande -- no damage
feijoa -- no damage
lemon drop mangosteen -- no damage


SOME DAMAGE:

Lychees -- trees ok but new growth toasted (old leaves ok)
Kohala longan -- same as lychee (new leaf burn but established leaves ok)
Ylang Ylang -- most of the exterior leaves toasted; did much better than I thought
Small mangos -- both lemon zest (toasted leaves), Maha Chanok (leaf burn), Pickering (some burn); most burn on lemon zest.
Large mangos -- Carrie (some leaf burn)
Pakistan mulberry -- quite a bit of leaf burn
Gefner atemoya -- some leaf burn
figs -- toasted leaves 100% (all 20 varieties)
sugar apple -- leaf damage (not too bad surprisingly)
Wax jambu -- leaf burn
jack fruit (about 3 feet tall) -- some leaf burn; surprised it wasn't killed


QUITE A BIT OF DAMAGE:

Bananas -- toasted leaves and trunks (Manzano, Dwarf Cavendish, Ice cream, Golden)
Kary starfruit -- leaves toasted and crispy (tree will survive though)
Papaya (Red Lady) -- extensive toasted leaves
Muntingia (strawberry tree) -- leaf burn extensive
Pacay -- leaf burn extensive


EXTENSIVE DAMAGE:

Abiu -- toasted leaves and all dropped already (may not survive)
Rollinia -- toasted leaves and all dropped
Peanut butter tree -- all leaves toasted; looks bad
Dragon fruit -- don't think it will make it

How about you all?  Similar results or different?  I'm trying to narrow down what plants are really ok for 9b Central Florida -- without being next to a lake, etc.

Thanks. I'm having the same experience in 9B in Florida. The sugarcane will have poor branch growth, set some flowers, and then nothing. It doesn't grow very well and looks pretty sickly. It's supposed to be self-fertile but I don't believe it is.  Guess no jujubes for me. I'm ripping it out today and planting a Day avocado in it's place.

I bought a sugarcane jujube from justfruits about two years ago. The plant is in the ground and doing ok, yet while it does flower, it doesn't set fruit. Has anyone had any luck fruiting sugarcane jujube in Florida -- particularly Central Florida and below?

Thanks,

Shawn (Orlando 9B)

Hi,

Just bought my first loquat tree -- Eds Delight. It was the only one the nursery had in stock. Any thoughts on this variety?

Thanks,

Shawn

I have three other tropic beauty trees that look great. This tree is about 10 feet away and started looking like this. I have no idea what might be wrong -- same water, same fertilizer. I have some areas with some sap leakage that isn't evident on the other trees too.

Noob question.

Over a 3 year span, I've planted about 12 different mango varieties (some in ground and some in 45 gallon pots.)  After 3 years, I have a bumper crop of Pickering and a few Carrie fruiting; every other mango variety nada. Pickering is pushing out full sized mangos too. Weird.

About what time should I expect the others to start fruiting in general?  It just seems a bit strange to see such productivity from all of my little Pickering trees but so little from trees that are planted in ground and are much larger.

Thanks,

Shawn