The Tropical Fruit Forum

I’ve had fruits on my PPK two years now and the mango’s just don’t seem to ripen. They’ll start turning a little yellow and may get slightly soft but then they just stop ripening. If I pull them off, the flesh is pale, dry, chalky, and rubbery. If I put them on the counter, they don’t turn yellow and slowly start shriveling up. If I let them stay on the tree, they’ll eventually start shriveling. My Angie tree is 20 feet away and gives me amazing juicy fruits. The best PPK fruit I had was actually this year from a single branch I grafted on the Angie but even it wasn’t very juicy. The fruit just managed to get a little more yellow. It fell off the branch as soon as I touched it but it still wept sap out of the stem.

Is this a known problem with PPK or some sort of nutritional deficiency?  I’m ready to topwork the tree.

I’m up in Sebastian so things start a bit later than everyone down south. We barely stayed above freezing this winter so I ended up having a great mango bloom. My oldest tree has a 5 yr old rootstock and was a seedling of a grocery store mango that was planted in the ground very young.  I was just learning about mangoes at the time and tipped it at ~2’ and grafted 5 different varieties onto all the new growth flushes. Fortunately, some of them didn’t take (Valencia Pride) but the one that took and really took over the tree was what I thought was Cogshall. It fruited for the first time in 2021 but only had 5 fruits (of which the squirrels got 4) and I wasn’t very impressed with the one I did eat. Everyone had a terrible year in 2022 so I didn’t get any mangoes but the tree really filled out due to extra growth flushes.  Now this year, I have 30+ fruit hanging.  A couple started changing color this weekend and one felt a little soft so I gently tipped the fruit and it immediately fell off. Very little sap came squirting out so I had high hopes and let it sit on the counter for a day.





It was pretty darn good with a surprising amount of flavor considering all the rain we have been getting recently. The problem is that they just don’t quite look like Cogshall. One of the other varieties I grafted was Angie so I’m starting to wonder if that’s what this is. It definitely has a “mango” flavor with a bit of spice notes and resin flavor near the skin.  The tree has zero issues with diseases and I do not spray it.



Ignore the new growth on the upper right corner. That’s my “backup” for a PPK that just wasn’t taking off like I thought it should. The fruit start blushing yellow and a slight tint of red but nothing like the bright red that I’ve seen in photos of Cogshall. Both varieties are dwarf and it sounds like they both have good disease resistance. Anyone have an idea what this variety is?

I don’t have many spots left in my sub 1/4 acre lot but I’m borderline high density planting in my back and side yard.  I have a north-south line of plants in the back with a Cogshall mango on the southern side and a carambola 20’ to the north. I plan on keeping the Cogshall at 10‘x10’ and I’m looking for something to plant between them that is ideally higher-stratum to provide some shade for the carambola and not encroach on the mango. I currently have an Indian almond (beach almond) growing in this spot but it’s had dieback at the top when we touched freezing temperatures a couple winters ago and then hurricane Nicole broke it off at 8’ last year so I don’t think this tree is going to do what I want it to.

What other plants could I fit into this space in zone 10a Sebastian?  I’m not sure if I want another mango although I could let a seedling Turpentine shoot up to the sky and fill this spot nicely (I enjoy Turpentines).  This area is very well draining sand that I heavily mulch.  I’d like to hear your comments.


I already have:
PPK, Sunrise, and Cogshall mangos
Mai 1 and Red Morning jackfruits
Oro Negro and a really good seedling avocados
2 loquats
Barbados cherry
Everbearing mulberry
Miracle fruit
June plum
Bananas
Strawberry tree
Cassava
A variety of perennial vegetables

I bought a baby seedling red hybrid in 2018 or 2019 from 9waters on Etsy or EBay. Almost killed it the next year when I put it in the ground in soil that was not suited and way too much sun. After 6 months of dieback, I pulled it out of the ground and put it in a pot in the shade. After a few months, it finally started pushing new growth and has been growing great since then. It up to a 15 gal container and has a ~1” diameter trunk. I’ve been patiently waiting for it to fruit. Lo and behold, I found a small fruit today a couple feet up on the tree on a smaller part of the trunk. Can’t wait to see if it makes it to maturity to taste it! 

I bought 3 Myrciaria Strigipes seeds from Bellamy Trees last fall with the hopes of getting 2 to successfully germinate and grow so I could keep one and give the other to a coworker who trades plants and seeds with me. I put them in peat moss and Agripro dry to give them the best chance of taking off. Over the winter, all 3 sent down roots and two started growing a stem in February:


The 3rd had a great root system but just didn’t send out a stem. I let it be. In the mean time, the other two kept growing and now look like this:


Lo and behold, I look at #3 and it’s finally growing above ground. Over 6 months after it was planted:

My “dwarf” Namwa has been a favorite ever since it produced its first 50+ lb rack after 15 months in the ground. It seems to send out the flower when it’s at the -10ft range and I’ve lost two racks due to wind (which is surprising with the massive girth of the pseudo stems). I’ve seen videos where they are flowering at what seems like 6’ and I’ve been starting to wonder if I actually have a tall Namwa. I believe this one was mail order from Florida Hill nursery. Is it possible that I have a tall variety or do those get really tall?  Is there a trick to getting them to flower at a lower height?

I have an 8" tall Cempepack seedling in a 4x14" tree pot.  It does not look like the tap root has made it to the bottom of the pot yet.  Will the tap root continue growing through the winter while it's not growing much above ground?  I'd like to keep it in a pot so I can better protect it this first winter as opposed to planting it out this late in the season.

If the tap root does get through the current pot, I'm thinking of getting some 4" PVC drain pipe to use as a makeshift extra deep tree pot.  Does anybody see an issue with this? If the tap root will continue to grow through the winter, should I transplant it now while the weather is still pretty nice?  Thanks!

I have 3 banana clumps and all of them made bunches late last year. After the frost from a couple weeks ago, I’m looking for advice on what to do with them.

The Namwa was earliest to fruit and the bananas in the bunch are green and plump. This has always been the healthiest clump and while most of the outer leafs are brown, there are still a good amount of green from inner leafs and from the shorter pups. I’m planning on leaving this one to ripen unless there is another recommendation.



The Grand Nain is in worse shape. This is actually the first time it’s fruited and it was planted almost 3 years ago. The bananas in the bunch are not fully plump yet. There is a green leaf on the pup and also some emerging pups.



The Gros Michel grew quick and fruited in 9 months but seemed to only hold onto 8 or so leafs. It wasn’t looking great before the frost and now the mother has little green on its leafs. The pups are pushing out green leafs. The bananas on this bunch are still thin.



Should I leave the bunches hanging or would it be better to remove them and let that energy go to the next one to fruit?  Will a fruit ripen if only pups in the clump have green leafs?