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Topics - fruit nerd

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Chempedak disease - advice
« on: March 28, 2024, 08:16:02 PM »
Unfortunately, our chempedak is looking pretty bad at the moment. I've been noticing a bit of dieback recently but I just noticed yesterday that one whole lateral branch has died. As can be seen, it looks like fungus is growing around the top of the trunk. For a bit of background, I chopped the top of the chempdak out in mid-March last year to minimise wind damage from a cyclone. We have since had ~4m of rain with about 1m falling so far this March.

What do you think I should do? I am thinking of cutting off the diseased wood and potentially spraying the trunk with copper/wettable sulfur. Also, what is the disease? I'd like to do some research into the issue.

Thanks



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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Aggressive rambutan pruning
« on: March 23, 2024, 05:26:10 AM »
We have 3 very large rambutans, 2 red and 1 yellow. Fruit quality is excellent and the flesh comes of the seed easily. The problem is though, the trees are absolutely massive. This means I can only harvest fruit is the lowest ~4m and the rest goes to the local wild life. At the moment, I've lost most of our fruit to lorikeets (native bird) and fruit piercing moths. They also take up a lot of space and I want to plant more trees.

Now to my question, what's the best way to tackle this? I want to bring the trees back to a manageable size. You can see they have been pruned back very hard years ago. In my opinion though, the height wasn't brought down enough. I'm thinking of pruning back to ~ 2m. Would it be best to cut back to the stump or cut at the branches? Also, one rambutan tree has a fair wound on it. Not sure if that's something to worry about.

Thanks!







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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Freezer recommendations
« on: October 05, 2023, 07:22:07 AM »
Looking at buying a freezer specifically for storing fruit, including jackfruit, mango, avocados, bananas and durian. For durian, I definitely will open and store only the flesh to save space. Chest freezers seems like the best value, but vertical freezers seems more convenient by allowing different fruits to be stored different levels. Any pointers for buying a freezer for storing fruit?

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Fruit ID - possible Australian native
« on: August 27, 2023, 05:11:16 AM »
Any ideas on what this could be? Far North Queensland.


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We have a couple of jackfruits flowering for the first time. Today I checked what I suspect was a developing female flower, and it was gone! Any ideas what would eat a jackfruit flower? We have lots of bandicoots and the odd kangaroo/wallaby which will make a visit. Any tips on how to protect jackfruit flowers if anyone has had this issue before? Really looking forward to harvesting our first jackfruit, being the first year of flowering, we don't have many flowers to lose.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Hand pollinating cacao
« on: May 21, 2023, 05:33:45 AM »
Do people generally feel there is much benefit to hand pollinating cacao? I have a cacao that's been in the ground for almost 2 years and I now have a bunch of flowers :). Wondering whether I should get out tomorrow and hand pollinate.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Fruit trees for high clay/steep slope
« on: April 01, 2023, 08:16:30 PM »
I have found it quite difficult to find fruit trees that like growing on a steep slope with heavy clay "soil". When it's wet, it becomes water logged and when it's dry, the water drains away and it becomes too dry (though irrigation could fix this). For example, I had 12 papaya and by the end of the wet season, I now have 3, ha. I also have a coconut that has hardly grown and a myer lemon that it not very productive.

Is there any tough-as-nails fruit trees that will do okay with neglect in such a location?

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Top working abiu
« on: February 20, 2023, 04:45:09 AM »
About a year ago, I chopped one of our abiu's down to the stump since it had two main branches which were crossing. Today, I ate its first fruit off it since its hair cut....and it was pretty ordinary. On the otherhand, our other abiu tree is highly productive and produces excellent fruit. Anyone have any experience with top working abiu? I think I will have to give it a try.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Fruit ID - possible Australian native
« on: January 30, 2023, 07:52:38 PM »
Location: Near Mossman, Far North Queensland
Tree size: Large rainforest tree
Fruit description: 2-3 cm in diameter, dark skin with pink flesh





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Similar to the Under-rated Fruit thread, what fruit trees are you growing without first trying the fruit?

For me, I have the following:
Pouteria viride - green sapote
Bunchosia glandulifera - peanut butter fruit (flowering now)
Dacryodes edulis - safou
Mangifera odorata
Pometia pinnata - Fijian longan

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Pruning/tipping Canistel
« on: October 28, 2022, 01:16:59 AM »
About 15 months ago, we planted a Canistel from seed. In the last couple of months it has taken off and is now about 1.5m high. So far, if has not made any branches. Would you tip it to force it to branch or leave it? If it were a mango, I'd definitely tip it but not sure about Canistel.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Spring in Far North Queensland, Australia
« on: October 01, 2022, 06:50:52 AM »
Pretty happy with this collection. Mixture of fruit grown on our property and bought locally. I do love living in the tropics  :)


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Tropical Fruit Discussion / What happened to my chempedak?
« on: July 08, 2022, 06:28:30 AM »
Been in the ground for a few months and had been growing quite well until a few days ago. We have had some unseasonably wet weather lately, 2 weeks of cloud cover and over 200mm of rain. Temps did get down to around 14C and we had one day were we would have been under 20C for much of day. Cold for me but surely it shouldn't be the cold which hurt it? All other trees are looking great, including another chempedak (probably 1 yr older), breadfruit and durian.



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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Monster Abiu
« on: June 23, 2022, 06:52:11 AM »
I have a small crop of Abiu starting to ripen now and some of them are getting quite big! There is also another small crop on the tree and it is flowering now as well so should be getting lots of fruit over the next couple of months :)


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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Tropical fruit trees that prefer shade
« on: June 21, 2022, 06:26:14 PM »
I have a small cleared section on my property that is inside a section of forest. The canopy is closed so there is basically no direct sunlight. At the moment, I am doing nothing with this spot. It's a nice little place in the dry season but pretty much a no go section in wet season due to mosquitoes. I wouldn't mind planting some fruit trees in this location but the heavy shade does reduce options considerably. Any suggestions for fruit trees that prefer shade/forest under story? If it's relevant, the soil in this location has lots of clay but the drainage is excellent since it is on the side of a hill.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Name and shame trouble-making birds!
« on: June 20, 2022, 06:33:04 AM »
I love birds and wildlife but sometimes they can be a pain. May I present my arch nemesis, the Orange-footed scrubfowl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange-footed_scrubfowl. They have a habit of scratching around newly planted trees, even raking them out of the ground on occasions. Close second would be the Sulphur-crested cockatoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulphur-crested_cockatoo since they love rambutans and durian.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Covering flowering mangoes
« on: May 18, 2022, 06:04:09 AM »
I live in a high rainfall area but want to grow mangoes consistently. I plan on keeping my mango trees very small (~6 ft) and manageable. I was wondering, have people experimented with covering flowering mango trees during rain events? For small trees, I don't think this would be very hard to do.

Last year, one of my mango trees flowered but we got heavy rain at the time which resulted in no fruit set. This year, that particular tree's trunk has thickened up and I believe it should be able to support a small amount of fruit. Hoping to give it a good chance of setting fruit this year!

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Monster Rambutans
« on: April 10, 2022, 07:22:15 AM »
Rambutan season has almost finished here. Been feasting on loads of rambutan most days for the last month or so. We have 3 trees, all around twenty five years old. Interestingly, one tree produces particularly large fruits. They taste great and I have certainly enjoyed the crop, as have the flying foxes and cockatoos, haha.





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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Rollinia identification
« on: February 11, 2022, 11:52:45 PM »
I know that there is a large number of species in the Rollinia genus. We came across this fruit today, looks and tastes quite different to the Rollinia deliciosa that you normally see. Any ideas?





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Any ideas on what this? It is growing on my property in far north Qld, Australia. Not sure it is an Australian native. Fruits are about 1 cm in diameter with white flesh and a small seed.



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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Pruning marang
« on: June 21, 2021, 05:39:14 AM »
I would like to grow marang, breadfruit, jackfruit and chempedak. While there is plenty of information on jackfruit, I was wondering if there is much information on other Artocarpus species, in particular marang? I know that these trees can get very large but I would like to keep them small and manageable if possible.

I found the following video about pruning breadfruit. Is it likely that a similar approach to be used for marang?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxjYj9Au42w

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