The Tropical Fruit Forum

Sartre guava, the Arrayan fruit is botanically known as part of Psidium sartorianum and I have had it growing for around 12 years here in Nipomo.  Small tree, fruits abundantly, never bothered by frost.  From Guadalajara Mexico, it is used for "waters" or to flavor drinks. 

Been growing Chironja here in Nipomo for about 15 years.  Seeds were from Puerto Rico.  Big tree like a grapefruit, green and full leaves.  Fruit looks like a grapefruit.  Grapefruit here on the cool CA coast are sour and bitter. Pummelo are better.  Just picked a bunch of Chironja to juice and they are not quite ripe yet. Usable. Another month... We do not have the heat to have a real grapefruit, but the Chironja is a nice combination of orange and grapefruit and develops good sweetness during the year.  Here it is more like a large orange, full of juice, peels like a navel orange.  As good as a Temple Tangor, but larger fruit, more productive.  An orange with a bit of grapefruit taste. One of my favorites.  Frost concerns: it is never bothered, but our short-time low this year was 26 and damaged several 3 ft tall mangos (that I should have covered).

Yellow Sapote (Casimiroa tetrameria) is thought to be part of the genetics of Suebelle (fuzzy underside of leaves) and Suebell is as a result smaller than the typical White Sapote (Casimiroa edulis).  My Pike is a giant and I can't reach around the trunk with both arms.  Unbelieveable amount of fruit is produced.  The Yellow sapote on their own roots are sized much smaller.  These trees are well over 20 years of age.  Interestingly, grafting a white sapote (like my giant Pike) on a yellow sapote rootstock causes extreme dwarfing and a tree about six ft tall, producing normal sized fruit.  No delayed incompatibility so far in over 20 years.  I have 4 dwarfed white sapotes on yellow rootstock, some 4 ft tall, some 7ft tall after more than 20 years. .  A much younger person needs to experiment with a varied interstock of yellow sapote on white sapote to regulate ultimate size of the tree.  As an aside, a friend dried some white sapote fruit (sliced) and it was exellent, described as the flavor of "gummy worms". 

I live in a relative cooler climate in Central Coast of CA.  low 40's to low 80s, with a few extremes.  See https://feijoarecipes.wordpress.com/2017/11/19/frank-serpa-fremonts-feijoa-king/ about an early Feijoa pioneer in CA.  I have 4 of Frank Serpa's cultivars along with some other selections (from others) and New Zealand's Triumph and Mammoth ones.  The Edenvale Late, Improved Cooledge, and other Edenvale are surpassed by the New Zealand varieties in both size, production, and taste.  Unfortunately, over the years, the Edenvale varieties have had to survive shade and competition from some huge avocado trees.  Mammoth and Triumph are well established (6ftX6ft) and taken care of with no competition.  The Edenvale group are being eaten by avocado roots and debris so it is an unfair competition.  I was introduced to CRFG many years ago by a friend, John Moore, who really knew his Feijoas, connected me with Serpa, and even selected one (Moore) for outstanding characteristics.  He told me there was a red one he encountered.  I would suggest there are some excellent Feijoas out there like New Zealand selections and worth finding them. 

Rain has helped harvest white sapote fruits. Mainly Pike and Vernon.  Rotting well, smell of vinegar, don't walk there.

Recent fertilizing?  Have not seen that before, resembles avocado starting to drop last year's leaves, but the leaves look fresh.  I barely water my white sapotes, not at all with the recent rains.  The trees here (similar to your climate) are pretty bullet-proof, more like weeds. 

What Scott said! 

I have around 39 mature macadamia trees and have potted many for sharing. In my experience, they just don't like pots.  Poor ragged little trees just take off when planted in the ground.

Had 4 in trunk cherimoyas cut down by freezes and also my lucuma knocked back to 3 inch wood.  Not much except new growth on white sapotes damaged.  Not happening any more as we have seen a change in winter temps (and rainfall, sadly)

Have a number of White Sapotes here in Central Coast of CA.  Trees are over 30 years old and have taken 19, 20 degrees with no damage.  Smaller ones do indeed get hit, but recover.  Low temperature, duration, humidity, and plant condition factor in relative to damage.  Our summer nights are cool (45 degrees), daytime temps in 70s.  The trees never have a lush growth due to cooler temps.  A growth flush from warm days followed by a freeze would certaiunly be detrimental.  Most of our trees are multigrafted and the different varieties seem to tolerate our frosts/freezes easily.  In the past few years we have experienced very few frost/freezing nights due to global warming and infact rarely get apricots (a previous commercial growing area) as not enough winter chill.  Been at this location for almost 50 years and the winters are indeed changing.  Use to use smudge pots (return stack heaters) and covers, but now rarely see any damage now (probably will pay for this comment this winter!)

Have not tried to root cuttings, yet.  Overdid the macadamia thing when told they would not grow here.  Once a new tree produces there are then lots of seeds to plant. I cannot remember time to production as I had grafted ones too.  Neighbor I supplied seeds just had first crop, about 5 years. I have, over the years, sent seeds around.  Hopefully they are trees now.  Baja CA has been my goto place for many years and fellow CRFG members have provided trees to the orphanage in Colnet.  Inspiring is to see the acreage of trees providing a cash crop to those dedicated folks.

Our climates are similar and different from that in FLA.  We have done the Protea family also: Banksia, Leucospermum, leucadendrons, Protea flowers.  Many from sources in S. Africa and Aus, but Jo in Ventura (Australia Native Plants) has a great nursery for them too.

As to varieties, the seedlings, in many cases, can be superior to those grafted ones I have.  My best graft is called L-1 (sweet), another is Z-3 due to the nut crackout size, maybe Aus or NZ selections.  Cate does not do well for me here, but it certainly does well in San Diego County.  Couple of the HAES (Hawaii Agricultural Experimental Station) varieties (747, 752) are prolific, but nothing special.  I think I have been more rewarded by seedlings when grown out than variety selections.  Beaumont is a very good variety and a beautiful tree with the red veining pink flowers and drops nuts all year.
I grew out many seedlings to evaluate them and have been pleased with the nut quality.  I did graft selections onto many of the seedlings just to retain the variety.  Did take a number of trees down to an orphanage in Baja CA and they have been successful there and have been reproduced.  We are in sand dune sand 300 ft deep, pH is 5.0.  Earlier (45 yrs ago) I lost little macadamia trees to frost, but since they have matured and hardened off they experience no effects from the cold (and now with "global warming" we don't see the freezes anymore).  Trialing some mangos now, picked one fruit to save a overstressed little tree. This is a gamble.

How old are the cutting-grown trees? 

Don't think they (seeds) care.  When we used to get rain and damp soli, seeds germinated on their own.