Should I thin white sapote fruits?

[brian]

It seems like my suebell is holding fruit for the first time this year.  Not sure how big these fruit get nor if they self-shed the excess reliably.  Should I reduce these fruit clusters down to one or two fruit each?  Or just leave it alone.   It seems like too much for a container tree

[sc4001992]

Wow, very nice Brian. I think your tree already thinned the fruits itself and that is what will remain. That's a lot of fruits for the size of the tree. How old is your tree?

I have a small potted seedling that I grafted Nettie and it had lots of fruits, but I thinned it to only one since my plant is much smaller than yours. I'll take a picture and post my one fruit.

[brian]

Thank you, I guess I will leave it be.  It definitely dropped a good number of fruitlets already.

I bought this as a small 1gal tree at Excalibur nursery in early 2020 it looks like from my notes.   It has quite a thick crown/trunk.  It is has flowered for the past two years but the fruitlets never got larger than acorn sized.  It has always been in somewhat undersized containers and so gets drought stress occasionally when I don't water fast enough.  It has been in this 20gal pot for the past year or so and will likely stay in a container forever unless the fruit is amazing.   I know very little about white sapote and I've never tried the fruit or even seen it in person

[sc4001992]

Ok, now I see how large your tree diameter is. Looks like 2 inches, that should be fine to leave all the fruits until ripe.

[achetadomestica]

The first year my supersweet held fruit they didn't size up.
They also didn't have seeds. The next year I watered a couple
times a week and the fruit was decent size with seeds.
My tree is in the ground but the watering made a difference

[Oolie]

My tree is going nuts with flowers, planning to thin once the unpollinated flowers drop.

[ScottR]

As they grow the fruit can get much bigger and grow into each other if you want bigger fruit I would thin out now! depending on variety they will be tennis ball to hard ball size or slightly bigger. Is this the first fruiting of this tree?

[brian]

As they grow the fruit can get much bigger and grow into each other if you want bigger fruit I would thin out now! depending on variety they will be tennis ball to hard ball size or slightly bigger. Is this the first fruiting of this tree?

Yeah this is the further fruit has held, previously it dropped off around raisin size.

[ScottR]

Brian, looks like your tree is big enough to hold some fruit this year, hope you get some hold outs

[brian]

No more fruits have fallen off and some are about tennis ball size now.  Will they tree ripen?  Or must they be picked hard?  And when to expect full size/ripeness?

I don't remember exactly when the flowers appeared, I think around February.

[Oolie]

Subelle tree ripens just fine, but you have to beat the rodents to them.

[SHV]

Here is a perfectly tree ripened Suebelle.  I find that if you let it color change on the tree with a little give to the touch, you eliminate any bitterness with the fruit.  Don’t give up on the tree if you’re not impressed with the first couple crops.  It significantly improves with tree age!

[brian]

Thank you, I will let them tree ripen.  No rats here and the deer and birds seem wary of exotic fruits. 

[brian]

My first suebell crop is now ripening, with some falling off the tree on their own even before becoming soft (though they soften up within a day or so on the kitchen counter)

I must say I am dissapointed... I just don't like the fruit all that much.  The smaller and less ripe ones don't have much flavor, and the ripe to overripe ones have a nice flavor but the texture is kind of gross to me.  The soft texture of annonas and sapotacaes are for whatever reason more appealing to me, hard to say why.  It is a shame because these white sapote fruit are almost 100% edible with thin skin and little to no seeds, much like a persimmon.  I'm not going to ditch it yet, I will see if it gets better over time as SHV suggests

Here are photos of two fruit at different levels of ripeness.  The latter one I believe is overripe as it is starting to yellow, but the flavor is nice enough it does not taste "off" to me

[Oolie]

Looks under ripe. Most fruit trees don't make a tasty fruit for at least three years.

[brian]

Interesting you say under-ripe, should I wait until it is full yellow inside?  I still have quite a few still on the tree

[sc4001992]

Brian, look at the photo of SHV's  suebelle, that's a ripe to over ripe looking fruit to me, but I'm sure it is very good tasting. Yours does look like it's still green. Just because it falls off the tree doesn't mean its ripe, as Oolie mentions, it wil take 2-3 yrs of fruiting before it tastes like the real variety.
 
I was lucky on my new fruiting seedling ws, it tastes good the first time it is holding fruits. I have many fruits on my tree, even the ones I picked still green (thinning) on the outside turned out tasting good after leaving it on the counter for 2 days.

[Gulfgardener]

I eat them when the thin skin starts to wrinkle. Or when they slightly give to the touch like a pear or avocado. Three years is a rule for me as well. They usually don't have the roots or canopy to give fruit full flavor until then.

[SHV]

Brian, if that is a Suebelle, it’s the largest I’ve seen. Or maybe you have tiny hands? The fruit looks very shiny as well.  My fruit have more of matte exterior surface. Even the cross section looks suspicious.  Just curious, are the underside of the leaves fuzzy on your tree?  That’s a hallmark trait of the Suebelle.
The fruit has a creamy texture when ripe. Some other white sapote have more of juicy, creamy texture more similar to a good cherimoya.  Hopefully your remaining fruit hold a bit longer and improve the eating quality. Otherwise wait a few more years for improvement as the tree ages.  In the meantime, it’s worth grafting a few other varieties to compare other white sapote selections on the maturing tree.

[SHV]

Here is a picture of a bite out of my Suebelle sapote to give you the idea of ripe texture.  Damn, I need a good white sapote right about now!!

[brian]

I agree that SHV's fruit looks very different from mine.  My tree does have slightly fuzzy leaf undersides.  I bought it from Excalibur Nursery in Florida a few years ago.  I recall hearing there is some non-Suebell type they were selling as Suebell at one point, but it was described as having no fuzz on leaf underside. 

I have never seen or tasted any other white sapote so I don't have anything to compare to (other than sc's fruit shapes thread) so I am not sure if mine is mislabelled or if there is natural variation within the same genotype. 

The vast majority of my crop is still on the tree so hopefully some will hold to yellow coloration before dropping, and I can try those.  I will be out of town next week though so anything past that will go to waste, unfortunately.

[sc4001992]

Brian,

I think you the the other Suebelle (not the real one). But someone on this forum said the fruit tasted good.

If you have the organza bag, you should put it on the fruits so it will catch the fruits when it falls off the stem. I use these so if the fruit is ripe and falls, it is still in the bag and not smashed.