The Tropical Fruit Forum

Just received the Green Sapote this morning, it is looking green and healthy as can be.  Thanks!

Just got the Regina seeds today Mike.  Extra seeds and a bunch are germinated can't wait for these to take off, thanks again.

Thanks for the plants Brian, they are nice and healthy looking.

Pandan I would look into cacti that are hardy and thrive naturally in mountain areas like Colorado.  I am sure there are other members in cold areas that would have more insight.

I picked up a unrooted Pitaya cutting from a seller on Etsy.  I have heard a lot of good things about the fruit but will likely be a few years at a minimum to get mine flowering.  Anybody have long term experience with these?

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Yeah got to be careful when its below 50.  I absolutely dusted my blackberry jam fruits when I stupidly put them outside early morning when it was breezy and upper 40s.  Only one survived out of five or six of them and is finally making a comeback but lesson learned.

Going to be totally honest and say I sat on these for longer than I should have.  I immediately had them soaking in water in a cup but I don't think they liked going from dehydrated to super-hyrdated.  I threw the 10 or so cuttings into a shallow pot filled with 50/50 perlite and vermiculite to try and salvage the situation.  Its been maybe a few weeks and some inevitably dried out and won't make it, but I did notice probably about 4 of them are still green.  I stirred up the soil on the smallest one and it is already rooting so not all was lost.

I doubt I will be the first to fruit these for the challenge, but the Quadrangularis should be a nice companion vine for my Passiflora Nitida in case it decides to also be self-sterile.

I had some Chamae seeds from tradewinds about 6 months ago.  They looked pretty much the same as the Rufa ones, kind of like a brown corn kernel in appearance.  I can't remember how many Chamae I had, maybe 10 seeds but not a single one germinated.  Thinking the genus has a low germ rate or tradewinds sent me some old seeds.  Oh well.

I second everything already stated by other members here.  Just wait it out, some take days, others weeks and months.  I will say with Guajava it seems to germinate quicker if they are really fresh but still should have a generally high rate of success after enough time.

Bush banana is Uvaria Chamae.  It's a close relative of Rufa. I think they share a lot of the same characteristics such as shrubby tree or vine with similar looking fruits, the color of the fruits seem to be different with bush banana looking more like banana and Rufa looking more red. 

I will say that the Rufa I have was basically in a unheated room all winter with only the grow light on it so maybe that is why it has been slow.  I wish I had more of them to compare but I am happy to have at least the one that looks healthy enough.

That's a great collection you got there rdm, love to see it!

Anybody else grab those uncommon Psidium varieties from Bellamy recently? I have everything I ordered cooking up:
-P. Sorocabense
-P. Nutans
-P. Sp Creepy Little Monster
-P. Pohlianum
-P. Goiaba folhas de Samambaia fern leaf guava

So far nothing popped out of the soil but I did move around the soil for Sorocabense and noticed one is germinating already only about a week in.  I did nothing special, just damp seed starting mix and sitting on my heatmat.

Ha, that's pretty rare for me for rooted opuntia pads. They usually don't pop flowers till they get a bit more height for me, maybe responding to the small pot? I grow a bunch but I still don't quite know how they work..

Yes I was totally surprised by that.  Even my rooted Opuntia Sunburst that I potted up a couple months prior to that one has no signs of flowering yet.  I will say the Pina Colada though is a lot more chunky and substantial than the Sunburst.

Glad your DF made it through the cold K-Rimes.  What varieties you have going on over there?  I have a yellow one that I got as a freebie from a seller and it was broken in bad shape, literally split in half and it was a small cutting already and I saved both pieces.  I have another one that has pink flesh from a nursery here but not sure of that variety.  Then I have a couple funky ones that I daringly risked rooting during the cold rainy winter and they are starting to put out new branches.

Honduran Moon Torch:



Black Afrikanis:




Both are probably a solid couple years from flowering but at least they are rooted and growing.