The Tropical Fruit Forum

Quote from: nullzero on January 26, 2012, 04:56:37 PM

I made selections for large high brix fruit.

Hey look- another person who needs a refractometer!

Yeah I need a refractometer, I going off what results the NALPGRU recorded. It would be nice to see my own results with the climatic conditions the plants experience.

I am growing low chill apples in Southern California, including Dorsett Golden. Different conditions however, lower humidity and grown in containers.

Dorsett Golden was flowering about 3-4 weeks ago. I recommend trying Anna Apple out, it is a great producer. Last year Anna Apple produced 2 crops.

Quote from: nullzero on January 26, 2012, 02:59:52 PM

Rob,

The perfectly ripe Sapodilla was incredibly sweet to me, I prefer sweet/acid balance. I used the lime to introduce some acid to balance out the extremely sweet.

I understand why you are doing it...its just that I, and a lot of people who love saps, love them for they sweet brown sugar characteristics.

Bottom line, if you like it that way, that is all that counts (some may call you crazy but then again we all are for being in this cult .

Rob

I guess sapodilla is not the highest on my fruit list, to me its worth growing especially with the quick preparation to improve to tastes for me. I guess its kind of like avocado, some people won't eat it plain only prepared in guacamole.

Murahilin,

Thanks for the personal taste accounts. I have a Silas Woods on the way soon, can't wait to add it to the collection. When I first tried Sapodilla, I thought it was ok, but extremely sweet. I then tried squeezing a good amount of lime juice on every slice, it made the flavor a lot more balanced and tasty.

Would love to trade with you Asaffron, I like collecting various useful edible plants and herbs.

It seems most of California experienced a bump up in zone. Interesting to see that almost all of Los Angeles basin is a solid zone 10b. I believe the Los Angeles basin gets a lot of the warmth at night from the concrete and asphalt density. I can spot many +15 year old Mango and Inga edulis trees planted in the ground through out Los Angeles.

I have been using this mix which I find to work out pretty well. The pine bark and peatmoss helps combat the high ph water conditions we have in Southern California. I intend to repot the mix every 2 years or so.

5 parts pine bark (A bag runs about $4 for 2 cubic ft., I buy 5 to make a batch)
1 part peat moss (Around $11-15 for 2 cubic ft.)
1 part perlite (Around $11-15 for 2 cubic ft.)
dash of lime and a hand full of compost (for microbes)

Total cost for 14 cubic ft. of soil mix $42-50. I believe from memory this fills up 3-4 20 gal containers.

Another mix I use for a custom made self watering container seems to work really well. Its 80% multi purpose sand with 20% compost. I finish off with a thick layer of pine bark mulch.

It was windy, but nothing extreme like the last wind storm. Mangofang, you plan to pug most of your mangoes and keep them short? Perhaps it will help with evaporation as well.

How high is your graft on the Ewais?  I was thinking about getting one from Roger Meyer.

Greg

Its a pretty high graft 2.5ft or so up the tree. I wish the graft was lower, but its hard to find any good sized unique mango in SoCal.

I am using them with pretty good results, its only been about 3-4 months since repot. Currently, I am using them in the more drought tolerant trees like pomegranate, jujube, and citrus. I bought a batch of (10) 18 gal fabric containers from ebay for a good price (think it was $89). I am going to possibly repot Julie mango in one next month. My main worries with them were drying out to fast due to the increased aeration (I don't know if I would repot the Lychees in fabric containers). I have been trying a 5/1/1 mix of Pine bark, Perlite, and Peatmoss. The plants seem to like this mix.

Cara Cara Orange and Anna Apple in fabric containers.


I am also trying out superoots air pruning containers with a Ewais Mango, so far its going well. I will be able to tell a bigger difference in performance of the trees once the temps warm up in the spring time. I try to also raise the fabric containers off the ground with a brick, however I have not done this with all of them. Thanks Kevin for the heads up, I am going to try to finish up raising the rest of the containers off the ground.

This is great news!  I have a Dwarf Orinoco in a pot, maybe 15-20 gallon.  I had given up on getting any fruit, I just kept it around for putting out by the back porch in the summer.  In fact, a couple of time I cut back the main pseudostem!  Stupid!  Now we'll have to find a bigger container and try to get some fruit!

Stick in there, you will get bananas soon. Mine started to fruit after they moved up into a 30 gal. I now have to work on a fertilizer schedule that helps promote rapid growth and more bananas development.

Congrats on the healthy newly planted trees, awaiting the future fruit update. Seeing these pictures is giving me the mango itch again... wanting another mango tree lol.

Kevin,

Which variety of Sapodilla are you growing? I found sapodilla to be very good fresh fully ripe with a squeeze of lime juice on the slices.