The Tropical Fruit Forum

Hi,
I purchased some scions, but I was away when they arrived  ....  In total, I think it was a about two weeks (maybe a bit more) from the time they were cut to the moment I worked with them.  I thought to myself, "none of these grafts will take...".

The first atemoya variety scions, I just went ahead and grafted them as they were.  But then, as I was finishing with that variety, I thought to myself, "these have been out for a long time.... maybe hydrating them in water would help...".  So, I did that for the second variety.  I left those over 10 minutes on plain tap water. 

The grafts for those that I didn't hydrate, the first variety, none of them took!  Out of 4 grafts of the second variety, the one that I did hydrate, 3 grafts have taken....

Don't know if this is significant or just casual... but I am hydrating ANY SCION that comes into my hands 

Hope this helps someone.

Hi!  My son is attending college in Orlando, Florida, and we are going to visit him next Monday, and stay for a couple of weeks. 
I am thinking that maybe this would be a good opportunity to visit a mango farm that sells their goods...  Do you guys know if there are any places more or less close to Orlando where I can sample some nice mangoes?
Thanks!

Hi,
A while back I commented that a friend of mine has a jabouticaba tree (over 20 years old).   Best guess right now is that it is Plinia coronata.

Six months ago, I cut some branches of the tree and planted them in ground.  It took a while to lose the leaves, but eventually they did lose them....  After 6 months however, it has not produced ANY root, but INCREDIBLY, the cutting is still green if you scratch it.

Anyone know how to root these things?   

Thanks,
Edgard

Hi,
Are some mango varieties true to type?  It seems to me that I have seen posts saying that some varieties are....  Is there a way of knowing if a variety is true to type or not?

Thanks,
Edgard

Hi,
I think this will be of interest to annona fans here.

I have a "Big Eyes" sugar apple I planted from seed.  I have it in a 10gal pot, and it is about 2 years old.  This year it produced its first fully developed flower, a single flower in the whole tree.  This was the only flower in the tree, the only annona flower in my backyard, and I am positive no one near me has any kind of annonas.   Last year it produced a tiny flower, but it didn't really develop into a "full" flower.

The thing is that this morning there was a small growing fruit were the flower was!  According to the Taiwanese farmer from whom I purchased the fruit a couple of years ago, this "Big Eyes" variety doesn't need hand pollination, but that I NEVER expected that one single flower would germinate itself.  What in the world!

Maybe it is just a fluke accident, but I thought it was very interesting.   Let´s see if it produces more flowers this year if they fruit.....

Edgard

According to USPS tracking, my package arrived last Tuesday morning.  In the REAL WORLD it arrived today..... 

At least it finally arrived....  Don't know however how good are the scions.... we'll see....

Goodness....

I found a very interesting article about using growth regulators in sugar apples to improve fruit set and quality.  I was surprised to see the results, especially regarding the use of "brassinosteroids".   

In case anyone is interested, below is the link.

Title: Effect of some Growth Regulators on Productivity, Fruit Quality and Storability of Sugar Apple Anona squamosa, L.
Link: https://www.nveo.org/index.php/journal/article/download/3543/2924/3564

I had been thinking for a while that since cherimoyas originated in the highlands of Peru, and that Peru has all kinds of weather regions (from very cold to very hot), that there might be varieties in Peru that have adapted to hot climates over the centuries.  So, for a while I had been searching in different places, asking friends I have in Peru, etc..., but couldn't find anything conclusive.  I also contacted a couple of agricultural research stations in Ecuador, but they didn't know.

Recently, however, I found the video I'm linking here.  This video is about pruning, yet goes into other details about cherimoyas.  It is presented by a lady called Maria Elena Rojas, who is the manager of an agricultural research station in Peru.  Around minute 25, while she is talking about choosing the right variety for your area, she explains that there ARE VARIETIES FOR THE JUNGLE.  The jungle she's referring to, is the Amazon jungle, and that is VERY HOT and VERY HUMID. 

Interestingly, she also mentions that these hot weather varieties tend to have leaves which are thinner than the cold weather varieties and have better medicinal properties.  From a picture she shows (at around 25:10), the leaves look like atemoya leaves, even though these are definitely cherimoya varieties.

YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKsODNG2nF8

Sorry that the video is in spanish only...

I forget if it was in this video, or another one I saw, that they explain that these hot-weather cherimoya varieties have not been used commercially as much because people prefer to grow soursop commercially in hot weather regions, and cherimoya in the highlands.  However, cherimoyas can be grown everywhere in Peru by choosing the correct variety.

I wrote an email to this lady asking to obtain seeds of these varieties but haven't received a response yet.  I am still pondering what other way I can get a hold of some seeds in the future. 

I thought that this would be interest to all annona lovers here....

Hi guys,
I was thinking about my grafting failures  and thought that one problem I am surely having is that I don't make the cuts cleanly enough, and also, I probably don't match enough the angles of cuts either.  In other words, the cambium layers don't match up as good as they need to match....

So I thought that a "solution" could be this.
1) Make the graft, side-cleft,  top-cleft, or whatever (as I have been doing),
2) Cover the graft with buddy tape (as I have been doing), AND then
3) Apply a TIGHT layer of white electrical tape OVER the buddy tape to force somehow a better joining of the cambium layers.
4) When the graft takes, I can remove the electrical tape, and it doesn't remove the bark because it is over the buddy tape...

Now, before I continue to kill grafts, could you guys comment on this!  Does this sound like a reasonable idea?

Thanks, Edgard

Today I met a taiwanese farmer, who now lives in Panama.  He was telling me that he brought from Taiwan a large sugar apple variety (“Tamali Damu”), and also “pinapple sugar-apples”.   

He still grows and sells the sugar apples.   He grew the pinapple sugar-apples for a while, but they required hand-pollination, so stopped growing them.

I had never heard of these “pinapple sugar-apples”, so I searched on internet, and it turns out it is an atemoya that Taiwan grows and exports.

Had any of you heard of these taiwanese annonas?

 

Hi,
I have eaten wax apples ever since I was a kid.  I had however only seen red ones with seeds.  A couple of months ago I was able to try a pale pink seedless variety.  I was pleasently surprised!

Are there many varieties of wax apples?  Which are the best varieties? 

Thanks,
Edgard

Hi,
Here were I live, in Panama, Central America, there isn't any significant production of cherimoyas.  In fact, the only commercial source - I know of - local to Panama told me that the season is finished.  There are however imported cherimoyas from Peru.  I was curious about their seasonality, so, I asked the people who import them from Peru.  And was VERY SURPRISED to hear that they are available year round.  They plan on bringing in a shipment every 15 days, year round!

How is this even possible?  How do they get the cherimoyas to flower year round?  Is this something that I could do with the few annonas I have?  This is definitely something I would love to learn how to do it....