The Tropical Fruit Forum

Any ideas to protect trees?
Where i live ,lately the hunters ( humans) completely dissapeared because of demographics,they eyther got too old or died of old age.Younger generations have zero interest  in hunting and that caused an increase in rabits and deers populations.
I have a small terrain thats not fenced ,on the river bed and i want to plant 100 fruit trees there ,but im affraid i that i will loose them to rabits and deers like one neighbour of that terrain did this year.
Im thinking to use a soird of paint mixture that has a pestilential smell to it ,and paint the trees trunks to deter the rabits and deers.

2 feijoa seedlings with severe chlorosis.I will treat them by mixing liquid smoke( pyrolignos acid/ humic acid) with water and with a few nails.I also added some 20 iron nails into each pot recently.I only treat the roots because foliar would be too easy to fix ,like something that fix the simptoms but doesnt heal the disease.

Ive read on this forum that somme citrus growers put iron nails into the trunk of their trees or in the ground .
Just bought 2 kilos of small nails for a soil experiment ( not for citrus) but i want to hear your opinions about this practice.

What is a good and acurate ph meter for testing the soil ph?

In my city we have legends about a bearded vulture that was living in the city and was soo friendly that people could pet him like a stray dog.When it died shot by a german soldier that got skared by the vulture ,houndreds of kids and people took the vulture and they got to burry him in the most expensive cemetary.2 books were written about this bird,one brand of beer was named ,,Vultur,, and one pub named after him,Vulturul Ilie.
Now to the subject,these vultures eat only bones and theire the only birds in the world that do this.Since they dont eat flesh they are peacefull and make great pets.They let the crows and otther birds to eat the flesh and then they go only for the dry bones wich they take into the air and drop them on stones from above if the bones are too big to swallow.Altough its the most peacefull possible raptor bird it did killed a human in recorded history.A bearded vulture killed Aeschillus,the father of the greek tragedy ,when the vulture dropped a dead tortoise in Aeschillus head ,because aeschillus was bald and the vulture thoght his bald head was a stone.So i immagined that this vulture poo should contain lots of Phosphorus because the bones are made of calcium Phosphate.
This vulture specie is now extinct in my country or close to be extinct and in fact Vulturul Ilie was the last one left and didnt find a pair to mate  wich led him to live in the city among the people that wiped out its specie because somme politician said to shot them all for a wrong reason.But instead of vulture poo thats high in P im thinking to fed bones to my dog and colect the white droppings wich should make a verry high in P fertiliser.I have only a few trees that need P fertiliser and a little goes a long way.

Recently i found a Lemon Zest mango that has polyembrionic seeds ( it has 2 seeds not just one).The seeds are connected by somme threads ( ombilicum  probably) and i wonder if its advised to separate the seeds.

Did anybody ordered seeds from Sunshine seeds recently ?I ordered a few months ago and i didnt received them but might not be their fault and i didnt asked for a refund.

The butternut its the only american walnut that i would give it somme space on my land ,mostly because.its endangered and there is fear that in a few decades might go completely extinct.Its the only walnut thats comparable with Juglans Regia in cold hardiness and taste and actually tastes a little better than J Regia and its a little more cold hardy.The butternut also known as the white walnut ,its the shortest lived walnut ,living up to just 70 years but this is also an advantage for a grower because it will start fruiting fast( its also the fastest fruit bearing walnut,in 4-5 years.makes nuts).In USA they made hibrids with Juglans Ailantifolia,an asian walnut specie, wich are resistant to the butternut kanker ,but a hybrid its not like the original.I had a few white walnut seeds from wich 3 germinated but i lost the seedlings.Will try again soon but only if im sure the seeds are coming from the pure specie.Seeing manny americans planting black walnuts on their property made me to start this thread with the intention that it might convince a few to plant white walnuts instead of black walnuts.

Im looking for ways to lower the soil ph on long term.I have 7,5 ph soil and would like to get it to 5,5 ph or close to that .I need this low ph because phosphorus becomes non available in acid soils and i plan to grow somme proteaceae that dislike phosphorus.

Seaberry or sea buckthorn its a nitrogen fixing plant that can grow in verry bad soils and enviroments ranging from the edge of Sahara desert( its also used to fight desertification in Arizona desert) up to the Arctic zone and Himalaya mountains where its the last plant growing.It needs both male and female plants to produce fruits and has fierce thorns that make the havesting of fruits a nightmare hence the high selling price of fruits (50 dollars a kilo) or leaves to make tea ( 100 dollars a kilo).The fruit  season lasts for half a year and they are abundant .Its scientific nane ,Hippophae Rhamnoides ,come from hippo wich means horse and its because people used to let theyr ill horses to rest between seaberry bushes and the horses became healthy .In USSR it was used to make cream to protect the cosmonauts skin against cosmic radiation and it was used since ancient times to protect against sunburns( thats why its called seaberry).In somme experiment made in URSS ,seaberryes were used to feed mice that had various stages of lab induced cancers and it stopped 90 percent of cancers with somme that even healed completely.The taste of the fruits its like a verry fatty orange taste with a hint of plum taste and a slight bitterness, has no sweeteness so it needs sugar for most people and its sour but less sour than oranges.Also the fruits have a high oil content that raises on top if you crush them in a blender.I think this its the healthyest fruit in the world and its the only fruit or plant that i could feel its effects on my own body while being skeptical about its health effects.

Anywhone interested in rosewood trees and shrubs( even climbers) ?After i just failed quite a lot of seeds from 4 species of rosewoods ,im thinking to order again but from different sources and in bulk quantity.Because i will order more than i need ,i could exchange for otther rosewood species that i dont have .Good to know is that im not interested in any south american specie even thogh i have a source of brasil rosewood( its too tropical for me and there are manny ,more beautifull and way more precious species).Im not growing these for wood but i am studying theyr usefulness in beekeping and soil improvement because theybare nitrogen fixers.D.armata,African black wood,Hupeana,Latifolia ,Odorifera and a few otthers are on my list to buy.

I have a rare pear tree that makes pears with pink flesh .The taste has a hint of basil and the pear name in romanian means ,,pear that tastes like basil,,.Theyre not a registered cultivar but an ancient type of fruit that has become almost extinct.It makes the fruits in clusters and they are smaller than commercial pears.The fruits are eaten fresh here and people that ate them say they are delicious and verry different from otther pears. If my tree will have fruits this year(its allready 8 feet tall) i could trade the seeds for other seeds here.