My Jaboticaba in Costa Rica

[JoshuaTilaranCR]

Two years ago I asked the guy in town who owns a nursery if he could get me a jaboticaba and I told him I wanted a big one, it didn't matter what the price was. I think it's probably Sabará. I paid about $25 for it, which he said he was embarrassed to charge me so much. It's about 5.5ft tall now, last year it put on quite a bit of new growth and it started to flower in January but the dry windy started here soon after and the flowers aborted. This year it hasn't grown much, even from the start of the rainy season in June until now. I didn't have much hope for it to do anything but the bark started to peel a couple weeks ago and I just realized it has a bunch of flowers starting out.

Is it weird that it didn't do much at the beginning of the rainy season and it's just starting to flower now, towards the end of it? I thought they reacted to rain and grow and flower with the start of the rainy season. I'm hoping the winds don't start here before it can set some fruit!

[achetadomestica]

I have a couple sabara in the ground also.
What I noticed with all my jabos is that as they get bigger and older
they flower and set fruit more and more. One of my sabaras is fruiting
several times a year now and so far all the fruit have one very small seed.
This is the third year I have gotten fruit and it fruited 3-4 times so far
this year. My other tree flowered in the middle of rainy season for the first
time and none of the fruit set. Be patient

[Timbogrow]

I have the same habbit of making a cage on the bottom. It works great to protect from rodents.

[JoshuaTilaranCR]

Thanks for the replies! I can't wait to try the fruit, I've never tried it before! Hopefully it sets some fruit and of it doesn't maybe it'll flower before the end of the rainy season next year!

The cage on the bottom is to keep out rabbits. Our back yard is completely enclosed and my daughters had rabbits before I planted a lot of fruit trees. They started breeding and eating all the bark on the trees. I made a better version with cement wire mesh and shade cloth pulled tight and hooked onto the metal points that I left above and below. They haven't found a way to cut the shade cloth yet thankfully.

[Timbogrow]

The wild rabbits did the same to my lychee and mango trees so I put it around everything. I just use the plastic chicken wire then zip ties to close the circle and some TIG filler rod for staking them. Hope you get lots of tasty fruit from your tree. My jaboticaba still has a ways to go and gets chewed apart by the sri lanken weavils. It's so frustrating!

[Finca La Isla]

Hi,
Looks like a curry leaf behind the jaboticaba.
You know, the jabo looks nice but I wouldn’t be surprised I’d that has a while to go.  Your climate is different than mine but…. I’ve got one in production with terrific fruit.  Another is larger than yours and still, nothing.  I don’t think they are very fast to produce.  The first ones I had in CR were in Turrialba. There are a lot in Perez but the ones I’ve had there haven’t been my favorites.  They make wine with the fruit there.
Saludos
Peter