The Tropical Fruit Forum

Azucar is widely grown in Colombia, and is even found in supermarkets throughout the country there. The trees are vigorous vertically orientated growers and produce large quantities of small yellow, oval shaped mangos with moderate fiber content.

Azucar means 'sugar' in Spanish and the fruit have a sweet, classic mango flavor.  The flesh is yellow and contains a polyembryonic seed.

We obtained budwood of Azucar in 2019 and topworked onto a stump that contains other varieties. It fruited for the first time in 2021.

Flavor: Classic

Country: Colombia

https://www.tropicalacresfarms.com/product-page/azucar

If you're looking for fruit selected for flavor, I'd first look to universities which may have a breeding program for improving a particular species, many new releases in the last decade have been university improved selections.

Many are not likely to have commercial potential, but there have been very favorable reviews for the grapes released by The University of Arkansas.

The entire plant is edible. It is vigorous, and should be planted on a fence that can bear some weight. The base will need protection for gophers, so planting in a basket or a 5 gallon bucket with the bottom removed, then buried in the ground.

You will need to spray for ants and whatever their chosen scale insect/mealybug/crop of your colony's choice.

I really like eating the seed when cooked, but like I said the whole plant is good.

If you're dead-set on sugar apple, you can hand pollinate.

As stated earlier the limitation, especially in the dry desert will be the female part of the flower drying up too quickly to receive the pollen.

To improve fruit set you will want the blooms to form in times of high humidity for selfing to succeed.

Atemoya likely does better due to larger flower petals which keep the female part of the flower from drying up as quickly as they would on a sugar apple with smaller petals.

Luckily there are hybrids which have taste and texture similar to sugar apple, but with flowers which favor selfing.

Those I would recommend are Leo#3 and LH Late, which based on naming convention is probably Late Gold.

I wouldn't recommend a pure cherimoya due to defoliation in the intense desert heat, but the recommended hybrids have some sugar apple which seems to improve heat tolerance.

If you use sugar apple as rootstock, you will have dwarfed trees.

Still looking for:
Mesk
USDA Taymour
Giselle
Creme Brulee
E4
M4
P22

Guava is definitely up there. I prefer it to LZ, but I've never had a mind blower of an LZ. I've had Guava that was special.

Sorry CC, sounds like the guava you had wasn't a peak guava.

If grafts fail, it's poly, so plant a seed and use it for an approach graft.

Pineapple Pleasure is Mono unfortunately.

The nursery trade here tends to be better, but this type of thing still occurs. Usually only with online sellers though.

I'd hold out for a P-22 or a K-3, those will be the popular ones down under, and they're poly.

The Zill method for crushing the leaves and smelling the sap will keep you from picking an off type in many cases, so I'd use that to find ones you're hoping to enjoy.

Quote from: Steely on May 27, 2025, 08:55:06 AM

David H,
Thank you, I have been having this little battle with quite a few of the nurseries and even more of the keen collectors claiming to have varieties that can't possibly be authentic, as they all eventually say they got the varieties from Mike or from someone who did. Even when they know they are selling a product not as they state, they still go ahead and do it. Anyway... When it comes to US varieties that, as far as I can tell, all came via Mike, and as you stated, Mike always told everyone, all the varieties came from seed except for a reasonable collection from Ayre. I have only been collecting for three years and have around 80 varieties, the majority I have collected from Mike, Fitzroy, and the Seed Bank at Ayre. I, too, got the Zill bug but have removed all varieties that were not polyembryonic, except Bailey's Marvel, which by the time I understood about Mono's and Poly's is now at an age that it is worth waiting for fruit. The good news is that many of the varieties that have excellent reputations are poly, Sweet Tart, Orange Sherbet, Lemon Zest, etc, so there is a reasonable chance that some are the real deal. How they perform here is another question. I would love to get some advice from you. Again great to read from someone who knows what is going on. Cheers Dan

Hey mate I too have come to this conclusion after a few email exchanges with some of the big name nursery here.  I was quite disappointed to find that they didn't really know whether some of their mono mangoes were sourced from budwood or seed so I now avoid anything mono like the plague just in case. Not just zill varieties but some of the Indian mono are likely been sold from seed as well. Buyer beware.  Im sticking to mango that have been around a lot longer at this stage the only zill mango I currently have is orange sherbert so we will see how that turns out, hopefully ok being a poly.

Crush some leaves and smell the sap, OS has very identifiable sap smell. I've planted many OS seeds, and they very rarely produce off-types in my experience.

Bumping this up.
I'd like to try to get these seeds this year.
Mesk
USDA Taymour
Giselle
Creme Brulee
E4
M4
P22

Several of the CRFG members have it now if you go to the meetings (A week from tomorrow, 6PM, Balboa Park, room 101), and ask around, I'm sure you'll find someone with extra.

Leafs typically curl up in response to the soil drying out between waterings. They don't get better, just kinda bend the other way, but the plant only uses them for about a year before replacing them.

It also helps to paint the pots white so they don't heat up as much, but I usually keep drip-fed pots which aren't self-watering, in a shady area where they get a lot of indirect sun.