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Messages - Kuhyay

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52
PM sent. Let me know if you got it since most of my PMs don’t seem to be going through

53
Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / Re: WTB Dragonfruit varieties
« on: April 09, 2021, 03:12:34 PM »
You can get some decent cuttings from https://spicyexotics.com/shop/. Alternatively, you can reach out to brad (Spaugh) who, if I'm not mistaken, has a listing for some good varieties right now.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Avocado tasting
« on: April 08, 2021, 05:32:52 PM »
I may be able to join, depending on when our kid is born.

55
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Mangosteen unprotected in San Diego
« on: April 06, 2021, 10:58:41 PM »
Here is an interesting datapoint...

In 1990 Bill Whitman was apparently inquiring about techniques to fruit mangosteen. In response, the article's author, John Marshall, cites a tree that fruited at 10 years old and was grown in-ground in a “sub-tropical climate where winter temperatures fall to as low as 3°C (37°F)”. Presumably this is not referring to his family farm in Kuranda, QLD, which is zone 12a.



Source: https://rfcarchives.org.au/Next/Fruits/Mangosteen/MangosteenSecrets7-90.htm

I’ve reached out to Mr. Marshall in the hope that he can shed some light on the growing conditions of that tree, and will post back with his response.

In the meantime, what does this mean for the conventional wisdom that this tree can't be fruited in climates that get as cold as 10a/b?

56
In his first post he mentioned it would take around 2 weeks from shipment to delivery and pick up at USDA station - so it sounds like should roughly plan for delivery the week of April 26th. Hopefully we can get a more dialed in date as the order progresses.

Either way, I am really stoked on this whole thing and our TFF community coming together for this. Thank you Beicadad for leading the charge.

Hear, hear! Thank you Beicadad for all your work researching and coordinating this.

57
seller is responsible for shipping to the USDA inspection station. I will pick up the trees after it clears the custom.
I don’t want to pile on here, but that did not answer the question. Unless seller has stated to you that the plants will be shipped air freight, we all threw away a lot of money.  With the shipping delays that are currently occurring at the CA ports it could possibly take months to receive this order.

I was speaking with beicadad about shipping method, and he confirmed it is via air, which is the fastest option.


58
Having lived in southern California for a couple of decades, and growing mangosteens now in Hawaii i can tell you from experience that the main difficulties in growing mangosteen in your area is maintaining high humidity all year long. This could be done with misters. But you don't want to use city water with chlorine, salts, or high pH. You need rain water or a very good water filtration system. Also mangosteens, and other "ultra" tropical fruits, like very little variation between night time temperatures and day time temperatures. It's not enough to keep temperature from dropping below 55F, and then during the day you reach 100F. Mangosteens can easily withstand 100F when there is high humidity. But they can't stand that variation of 50+ degrees difference between night time and day time temperatures. You don't want the temperatures to vary more than 20 degrees. You may be able to get the tree to grow with higher variation, but it will be very difficult to get it to fruit with higher temperature variations. If possible, i would also use a heating coil in the soil to keep soil temperatures from dropping around the roots system below 70F. Also in winter when the days shorten you will need a good lighting system to lengthen amount of hours of light the plants receive. Good luck. Nobody has been successful yet at growing mangosteen in California, but i think it is doable given enough perseverance and attention to detail.

Oscar, You bring up a great point about soil temperature. From what I understand surface soil in SD ranges from ~60F during our coldest days to ~80F during our hottest days. It seems providing some root heat during the winter would keep things moving along. Would you recommend localized heating around the tree, or some type of full-greenhouse soil heating system?

I'm thinking that a well placed tank/pond could serve double duty here. Both providing humidity as well as a thermal mass to regulate fluctuation. What are your thoughts?

Sounds interesting.
You might not need the humidity so high but 80% should be good.
While support at 55f is what you hear I wonder if the tree would continue to grow well at that temp.  If not then the roots could become vulnerable to fungus.  Our trees grow well through the entire year but our absolute minimum temperature is 20C, (68f).
Our soil is a clay loam with a ph of 6.1. Where I’ve done farm stays in Malaysia the conditions were very similar and soil at 6.5
Suerte
Peter

Ph is a great callout Peter. Our native soil is pretty neutral, but water is definitely alkaline at ~8.2-8.6. I suppose that can be mitigated by building a deep organic layer with regular amendments of sulfur.

It's easy to maintain 55 extreme low in that area. It's easy here when it drops to zero. I'd suggest two heaters both capable of holding 55 when it's the colest ever outside. One heater as backup just in case.

Holding 90F when 107 outside isn't as easy but can be done with large exhaust fans and a wet wall. It might take some shade as well. The right greenhouse covering will limit heat loss in winter and heat gain in summer. My GH has double layer inflated woven poly and is easy to cool. Palring 175UV over 146UV.

The hard part is the 80% RH. What I'd look into is a misting system.

Also you want something as backup in case the power goes out. A few hrs without power could ruin yrs of work.

It would help to know your light level requirement. Mine with the double layer is about 50% of outside which is more than enough for the dozens of kinds of fruit I've grown.

Good point on light fruitnut1944. I'm thinking since Mangosteen is an understory tree, it could fruit with less than full light. Though I would love some input from actual growers! Having a double layer would help with temperature regulation and also cut down the need for additional shading. Regarding redundancy, that is a great point as well. We do get occasional power outages are during the wildfire season.

59
Sorry for the flood of questions...

What is the shipping method for these from China? Do you know what the expected time is from the seller packaging the trees to when they clear US customs? Also, what terms did the seller agree to, e.g FOB, CIF, DDP, etc?

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Growing Mangosteen in greenhouse in SoCal
« on: April 04, 2021, 03:48:52 PM »
For the past few years I've flirted with the idea of trying to fruit G. Mangostana in-ground here in San Diego 10a. (Vista/Bonsall area). While all my other garcinias have done well unprotected, I think it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the right conditions over the necessary 20-year period outdoors for mangosteen.

Here are the challenges I see:
  • They need major cold protection. We get rare overnight colds snaps that dip as low as 30F, with average lows in the low 40Fs.
  • They need heat protection. We get occasional heat waves that go as high as 107F, with average highs in the 80Fs/90Fs.
  • They need humidity control. We get annual Santa Ana winds that drop RH below 10%.

Luckily, we are planning to install a large permanent greenhouse on our new property where, given the right systems, I hope we should be able to mitigate the worst of our climate's limitations for this ultra tropical white elephant.

Am I considering the right constraints? If so, does anyone have experience creating this type of environment in a greenhouse in SoCal? Specifically:
  • Heating system to maintain winter lows above 55F
  • Cooling system to limit summer highs to 90F
  • Humidity control system maintain keep an average RH of ~80%

Some specifics about the property where greenhouse will be located:
  • Zone 10a, sunset 23
  • Mostly E aspect, with some NW
  • Gently sloping, downhill. Neighbors with same topography report light frost every 6 years or so.
  • Well draining, fine sandy loam, neutral ph
  • Gets cool daily breeze from the Pacific Ocean through the San Luis Rey River basin.

61
Tropical Fruit Discussion / PMs not being delivered
« on: April 02, 2021, 11:02:12 AM »
I have now experienced several instances of PMs not being delivered by the forum. On each occasion I sent a PM to different users, who, upon follow up, each reported they never received the first.

Is anyone else experiencing something similar?

62
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Bark graft cherimoyas?
« on: April 01, 2021, 09:23:31 PM »
I did it with 66% success rate last year. Top worked a 15 gallon and bark grafted two scions to each scaffold. The key was just waiting until the bark started slipping at the beginning of April.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Mangosteen unprotected in San Diego
« on: April 01, 2021, 01:44:29 PM »
Just a quick update with no pictures but I talked To my friend today and his Mangosteen tree is still alive! Damn him, lol! Sometimes it can be a good thing when someone proves me wrong. I’ll stop by and take a picture soon.

Simon

That's incredible! What part of town is he in? What type of expose/micro-climate does he have that tree planted in?

This is definitely something I want to try in our new property in Vista/Bonsall.

64
So exciting! Payment sent.

65
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Who is growing No Mai Tsze lychee?
« on: March 31, 2021, 01:03:37 PM »
I’ve got one of the exotica NMZ too. This is pretty common for them. Looks like a year old air layer at most. Has anyone fruited one from them? I’m not convinced it’s an actual NMZ.

Is there a reason you are not convinced yours is an actual NMZ?  Have you tasted and compared the fruit versus NMZ?

No particular reason. Steve isn't known for his immaculate record keeping, and when I asked him where he sourced his NMZ from, he couldn't recall. That being said. I don't have a confirmed NMZ to compare against and I don't have any other reason to believe that this isn't an actual NMZ. Maybe Brad or Simon could chime in.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Who is growing No Mai Tsze lychee?
« on: March 31, 2021, 10:10:26 AM »
I just planted a “15 gallon” No Mai Tzse from Exotica




I’ve got one of the exotica NMZ too. This is pretty common for them. Looks like a year old air layer at most. Has anyone fruited one from them? I’m not convinced it’s an actual NMZ.

68
For those curious, I've been doing a bit of research into the different varieties and found some interesting info.

Zhejiang (the main Yangmei producing provence), has an annual competition to judge different cultivars and growers. In 2020, the DongKui took first place to beat out Biqi with a soluble solid content of 15.5% to 14.7% respectively.

The winning farm is located in Lanxi. It looks to be USDA zone 9b/10a with an average annual rainfall of ~57", most of that coming in the spring/summer rainy season. I've visited Hangzhou, a couple hours drive north from Lanxi, and I can see why there is the old saying "上有天堂, 下有苏杭". It roughly means "Just as there is paradise in heaven, there are Suzhou and Hangzhou on earth".

Sources:

I'd be very interested to see what other information folks have found for the varieties on offer.

69
What strategies will everyone be taking to mitigate transplant shock?

It looks like the folks at Calmei tried to import their trees originally, but they didn't survive to fruiting age https://www.californiabountiful.com/features/article.aspx?arID=2451

It's also good to know that these are nitrogen fixers too.

70
I'm interested in:

2x dongkui
2x biqi

I'm in San Diego. I can do local pickup.

71
I saw some at the Home Depot in Mira Mesa.

72
Ong nursery has some too.

73
Pm sent

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Wow! you could almost mistake that for an Avocado... Any chance you'll sell seeds of that variety ;)?

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I catch rats every few days. I personally can’t bear to kill them. I release them in an open area a few minutes away so they can live their life away from my fruit trees

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