The Tropical Fruit Forum

http://www.dw.com/en/eggs-of-the-sun-mangoes-promise-japanese-bountiful-harvest/av-38425009

I'm planning a new orchard to add to the current 50 mango and 50 avocado I already have. My goal is to have a project during my retirement with a diverse collection of tropical fruit and vegetables for home use.
While profit isn't a prime motive, anything I can grow in excess will hopefully pay for maintaining things. I've been growing things much of my life and have owned both temperate and tropical farms which had income. The setting is SW Florida on Pine Island offshore from Ft. Myers near Bokeelia, which is a good frost limiting microclimate surrounded by water and barrier islands. I have 3 acres available, reasonably good elevation, typical Florida sandy infertile Flatwoods soil and the site has a decades long history as a successful tropical fruit grove mainly Mango and Lychee and was previously a tree nursery.

I've decided to do a polyculture during the orchard establishment phase, where assorted inter-crops and cover crops are grown between the trees. Past success on this site has been with trees on raised beds, a pattern which I'll continue. There will be about 3-400 trees of various sizes, some small, some large.

Here is an image of a typical planting:



My questions are about installing an irrigation system for the orchard. I'm very familiar with piping system design and installation from 40 years general industry experience, but haven't done any irrigation before.
Here are some questions:
University of Florida has the following recommendations for water use with microsprinklers:

Mature trees: average trees need about 20 gallons/day

Question:
I want to design the system to ultimately support mature trees, but at first to support a mixed polyculture of other plants in the beds. I understand that rain days will decrease usage, and best practice on sandy soil is more frequent but short-duration irrigation.
Is 20 gallons/day/tree a reasonable max capacity estimate?

Microjet sprinklers: (deliver about 7-25 gal/hour) ~15 gallons/hour, best to install two microjets/per tree

Question:
If I install microjets along each 6 ft wide bed, what spacing should I use?
This will depend on how wide the coverage is for typical microjets, can anyone help?

Question:
If I want to selectively irrigate either the beds or the paths between the beds, can I buy microjets which spray 180 degrees and just pull up the stakes and re-orient the jets to spray the direction I want, or is there another option like adjustable spray patterns?

Questions:
Can anyone suggest the best makers and models of durable cost effective microjet sprinklers?
Can anyone suggest the best sources for general irrigation tubing and accessories like filters, meters, etc?

Thanks for any advice you can give!

I'm not sure how well known this technique is. The branches are tied down for a month until new branching begin. I've heard of bending Carambola branches but didn't hear an explanation for why. It might also be applicable to other fruits with similar bearing habit (bears flowers on current season's growth). It might be useful for out-of-season bearing, or to have a crop bear in a season with less disease or insect pressure.

Video of out of season harvest, guava branches are bearing away from tip growth and along top of arch of branch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNRM_HJMSP8

Guava plant bears flowers on current season’s growth/ new shoots irrespective of time of year. New shoots are produced on mature wood or past season’s growth laterally or terminally. In general flowers are produced in the axils of leaves as solitary or in cymes of two or three flowers. The current season’s flowering shoot continues its growth till fruit setting. After fruit setting the terminal bud ceases its growth until the next growing season. Sometimes, flowers appear at the tip of the current season’s growth. Such shoots do not grow further.

Thus, crop load depends upon the number of new shoots. Emergence of more number of lateral shoots on a branch means more flowering and fruiting. Upright/erect growing branches produce new lateral shoots near to their top end. The lower buds of such branches remain dormant because of apical dominance phenomenon. The tip of the branches produces a plant hormone known as auxin that moves downwards and inhibits the growth and development of lateral buds. This suppressive effect of auxin on lateral buds gets diluted in spreading, droopy or horizontally growing branches and such branches produce enormous number of new lateral shoots.

Therefore, guava branches can be induced to promote more numbers of lateral shoots by adoption of branch bending technique. Bending of branches invigorates or activates the dormant lateral buds by means of suppressing the apical dominance. Besides, this technique induces more flowering by maintaining higher C: N ratio and stimulating proline biosynthesis under an episode of stress.

Link to the method:
http://www.krishisewa.com/articles/production-technology/390-branch-bending-guava.html

Powerpoint presentation:
http://www.share4dev.info/kb/documents/2996.ppt

Scientific paper on the effect:
http://www.banglajol.info/index.php/JESNR/article/download/14808/10548

I've found guides for pruning techniques on a few fruits, mostly the common ones, but is there a good place to find more examples for minor fruits?

This video is about soursop (in Spanish) and shows just how much can be done to change the natural form of a tree.
Naturally almost all soursop I've seen grew very tall and lacked the sort of structure this fellow achieves on his farm.
The cable car used for transporting the fruit from mountain to mountain is pretty cool too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6k2ONKDsbw