The Tropical Fruit Forum

Thanks Mark!

And thanks for that link, I have read some of her papers before, but I have not read that one yet. I do understand what she is saying in the paper. My approach with my persimmon and plum holes was contrary to her advice. I did do a much higher percentage of amendments than she recommends, but as I was doing it I thought about the 'bathtub' effect and fact that I would get settling over the years. So I formed a small mound so that the crown was 3" above the native soil level. This would give me some margin for settling. And I actually want a bathtub in the soil. These trees are somewhat close to obstructions in the yard and I am keeping them to about 6 feet. I am planning to do so by pruning, but I figured constraining the roots (essentially putting them in a 'pot' in the ground) would also help me to achieve that goal.

Regarding the Joey avocado: Please let me know if you put one in and how it does! I frost protect my mango trees and will have to do the same with a Reed avocado (after I graft one ), but I did look into some of the much more cold tolerant avocados (like Joey, Stewart, Fantastic) and I can see the appeal of not needing to deal with frost protection.

Absolutely simon, glad you liked it!

On a side note, several members have contacted me regarding doing this same practice of direct planting of Mango seeds and asked about my opinion. I visited Leo Manuel several months ago and told him about my issues with slow growth of my mango trees and he mentioned that many of his larger trees were seedlings that he planted many years ago. I believe direct planting of Mango seeds would be the best route for people growing Mango in marginal climates.

That is another really good idea!

It seems like this approach will be great for a lot of subtropical trees that we love: avocado, mango, sapotes, cherimoya, atemoya, longan, lychee, etc. Anything that can make a strong and viable seedling, but won't necessarily produce good fruit from the seedling. Then we wait a year and do a graft from scions and have a much stronger site appropriate tree.

I am thinking very strongly about this approach now. The advantages are very compelling that you brought up in the original post (seedling/rootstock born into the environment that it will grow in, compatibility to soil biology, likely increased tolerance to non-optimal soil and water pH because it grew up that way, non-disturbed root system, able to handle seasonal stress better, etc.). One might point out that the disadvantage would be that this requires a lot more planning (which is true, can't argue with that) and will put you a few years behind in fruit production from a nursery-bought tree. And while that is likely true for initial fruit production, it seems likely to me that there is a cross-over point (say in years 3 or 4) where the native rootstock/site-grafted tree will outproduce a nursery rootstock/grafted tree because it is more established and able to send more energy up through the graft.

This point may not make much of a difference in more ideal growing environment for that cultivar, but for someone like me (who lives in the desert) it might make a huge difference in the long run. As you point out above: the best route for people growing in marginal climates.

Thanks!

Simon,

I found this paper from the California Avocado Association (from 1919!) that talks about so many of the ideas that you have in your post. I think you will really enjoy it!  - http://www.avocadosource.com/CAS_Yearbooks/CAS_05_1919/CAS_1919-20_PG_17-20.pdf . The first three paragraphs are very good. And even if the seedling is started in a pot at a nursery instead of in the ground and then transferred to a pot later, the same issue of an underformed tap root still exists because it will be constrained by the size of the pot. I really did not understand that an avocado tree really wants a long deep tap root until you pointed it out and I started reading about it.

My seedling are still doing great outside. But the real test will be in about 3-4 months

We had a nice Meyer Lemon crop this year. My normal margarita is 1 part fresh squeezed lime juice, 1 part dark blue agave syrup, 2 parts of a good Reposado Tequila (Cazadores happens to be one of my favorites). I made a variation on it to take advantage of the Meyer Lemons and highlight it's qualities: 1 part fresh squeezed Meyer Lemon juice, 1 part light blue agave syrup, 2 parts of Blanco Tequila (the light agave syrup and blanco tequila have less flavor which allows the orange-lemon character of the Meyer Lemon to come through more). Drink these on your porch in the middle of the afternoon, that is happiness

ClayMango, My experiences with Violette de Bordeaux and Panache here in the desert have been very good. Both of my trees are young / small so I only got a couple of small figs last year. But the taste is great. Very fruity with raspberry/strawberry notes to them, and not as 'figgy' tasting as say a Black Mission (and there is no problem with that, I love figs of all flavors!). This spring both trees are just taking off with growth and I already have a VdB fig that is already 1" in diameter, so I am expecting a much bigger crop this year. And of course, besides flavor, the tiger stripe green on the Panache fig is just beautiful.

I have an Izu Persimmon that I got shipped from a Florida nursery early last year. It grew like crazy all through the summer with our heat, I was very impressed. It bloomed like crazy in the spring and set about a dozen fruit. When summer hit, it dropped all the fruit but one. But because it is only a 3 ft tree right now, I went ahead and culled it because I wanted the tree to focus on growth. I like how it grows and takes the heat, and I don't have a lot of room where it is at, so this one is a naturally small tree, which is why I chose it. The taste should be similar, maybe slightly sweeter, than a Fuyu which I like very much.

Has not leafed out yet this year, but it has a huge amount of swollen buds. Based on how fast it grew last year, I am hoping to have a couple of persimmons in September!

Here is an idea that I had which is inspired by recent post by crazyforcherimoya regarding girdling a Lychee: http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=14685

The question I pose is: Since it takes so long to see the quality of fruit is by a seedling avocado (7+ years), can we speed up that discovery process by girdling?

I did a quick search on this forum and didn't find anything. But girdling in the avocado industry looks like it is common to induce fruiting, especially on the Fuerte which is a heavy alternate bearer:

http://www.avocadosource.com/cas_yearbooks/cas_06_1920/cas_1920-21_pg_69-70.pdf
(I have read a paper once similar to this, even though this is just an abstract): http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/27/6/639.4

In seedling mango, girdling has some positive results (and sometimes no results): http://fshs.org/proceedings-o/1963-vol-76/360-363%20%28GASKINS%29.pdf

In seedling avocados, there is a similar story, some positive, some no results: http://www.avocadosource.com/journals/hortscience/hortsci_1986_21_pg_1038-1039.pdf

So what does the community think? Has there been any experimentation with this? Any positive results, any non-results? Does it seem like a task worth undertaking?

Oh, and speaking of the Reed specifically: Avocado Diva ships them when they are in season. But I have also found them the last 2 years at the Whole Foods at 101 and Ray (they might be at other area Whole Foods too, I can only confirm this one). So every week starting in August I am up there snooping around for Reeds. They are my favorites.

Thanks Simon!

That is good advice on the grafts, will do. I will hopefully have a few seedlings to choose from after the summer (see which ones survive our heat the best), so I will likely have some choices in matching calibers low on the stem to the scion. And if I can get my hands on a couple of Reed scions I will probably do a grafts on a couple of different seedlings to up my chances for a successful tree.

I will definitely keep you updated, thanks for the support and encouragement!

Simon,

I wanted to thank you for putting this post together. I also fall into the the camp of planting avocado trees in vain, to see them do good in the spring but as soon as the stress of summer (especially down here) hits they wither up and die. So I also thought to plant some avocado seeds directly on my mound. I planted a bunch last year of all kinds of different varieties with the thought being that there will be enough genetic variation that will produce a rootstock that can withstand our salty water and high temps. I was not even considering the other factors that you point out in the original post (sprouts in the environment it will be living in so it builds a relationship with the soil microbes and chemistry right off the bat, no transplant shock, taproot is allowed to grow unimpeded and undistrubed, etc.). Over this winter I had 3 decent sized seedling (4-6 inches) that had sprouted during the fall and we had a pretty cold snap in December. My yard got to 26 F and stayed there for a few hours for 2 nights. And these seedlings showed absolutely no cold burn or damage at all, I was shocked. Now I have a dozen or so seedlings of various sizes and I will pick 2 or 3 that weathers the summer the best and graft on to those in the fall.

I had given up on growing avocados here, but now I am full of optimism again. Thank you for sharing your process and thought and the success that you have had with it. I love avocados (Reeds are my all-time favorite) and am looking forward to some fall grafting. Thanks again for this post!