The Tropical Fruit Forum

I’d be cautious about g. hombriana grafts. I used to graft mangosteen commercially and I stopped because I don’t like the way they grow. Many garcinias don’t want to grow upright when grafted. I have also grafted seedlings and top worked g. prainiana. Same thing. They need to be staked, pulled with ropes, it’s a mess. I took the very tip of a g. parvifolia and top worked it onto a male g. Lateriflora. It worked even though the sap color was different between these two species!  For top working males I guess I would still do it but otherwise I would just grow out the seedlings. You’re going to get a much nicer tree.
Peter

Yes, there’s a long list of fruit trees we grow that respond to a dry spell with a nice flush of flowering. Actually, if we get two dry spells then we often get two harvests during the same year.
Peter

It’s very rare that they fruit and not really worth it. I mentioned the temperature because you seemed to think it had to do with rainfall. In our climate it never gets as hot as in Florida either since days in the summer are much shorter than further north. The temperature might range from 75-86 or so.
Peter

I’m planning on going for at least two weeks in early February.
Peter

Pulusan is more delicate than rambutan, grows slower and yields less. But it’s worth growing. I am surprised you’re having so much problem with it. We air layer pulusan and it grows fine. There’s other stuff that, for me, are slower and more difficult. My weather is something like what you have in Bahia I think. We are a cacao growing area as well.
Peter

Another point I’d like to make is that there are lots of fruit buyers who really enjoy buying the fruit from the actual farmer.  That is a nice contact that can be highly valued.  It’s great for the consumer and the positive feedback for the grower is rewarding.
Peter

We have some lychee trees that occasionally produce. They’re seedlings from a tree planted long ago in this province at an area slightly higher elevation than our own. Low temps here don’t go below about 21. It’s really not worth it.
We grow a longan, Diamond river that does very well.
Peter

I have some questions. Is this a seedling, has it ever been topped with the goal of strengthening the branches?
We have a situation like this that resulted from topping a durian and then failing to properly shape the tree after. The tree is a D-99 that is very productive. This last season we attached a cargo belt to prevent the two trunks from splitting apart due to the heavy fruit load.
In a developing tree with two equal trunks if you cut one back somewhere up above the joint then the uncut one will start to dominate which is more favorable than two equal size leaders.
I know I haven’t directly answered your question but have tried to provide some info to help you assess the tree.
Saludos Ben

I doubt that it would work.  What I notice here in CR is that it doesn’t like dry either, pretty sensitive.
Peter

I’m not sure why I’m having so much trouble loading fotos to this site but it doesn’t work for me right now. I have no problem with messenger or WhatsApp.
So my technique is to plant about 5 durian seeds in a wide pot. When their first leaves open they are ready and could still be good for another month or so. So very tender.
I generally clip the stem about 2cm above the wide part and do a simple cleft graft, using a scalpel for all my cuts. I use the same clips that Jay posted a foto of. Then I put sticks to slightly above the scions and put a clear plastic bag on. This bag needs to be completely closed and folded under the pot. After 2-3 weeks the bags come off. The successful grafts then are transplanted to individual pots and the foliage kept moist.
There are many details to get right with selecting the scions, making sure the rootstocks really want to grow, etc. I think a lot about cleanliness and sterilizing my knife constantly.
At first, grafting durian I was getting only about 20% take now it is probably about 85%. Sometimes it’s perfect and others maybe only half of the grafts take. But overall I’m happy with this.
Peter

Some of the garcinias we have in production are mangostan, parvifolia, forbesii, magnafolia, brasilensis, intermedia, madruno, prainiana. There’s probably more.
I recommend going to the Osa, but not really for looking for fruit. In that general region I would go to the San Isidro farmers market that is held on Thursdays. Two guys there specialize in rare fruits. Tonny Gracia has a large stand there and there’s an expat named Wade who sells some good stuff. Nearby is the farm of don Carlos. He produces some good durian and other rare fruits. You can find him on Facebook.
Two places in CR with very large roadside fruit stands are by the highway 27 in the vicinity of Orotina and also on the hwy 32 near the turnoff for Sarapiqui.
The farmers market in Puerto Viejo is on Saturdays.
Peter

I don’t know anything about cold tolerance but stipitata seems to resist dryness pretty well. I planted lots of it years ago as an intercrop between large fruit trees planted at 35’ spacing.  Now that many of those araza are under some shade they still yield fruit.
Peter

For some reason I haven’t been able to load the image I want to. But, regarding the pedalai. I have several artocarpus and I wanted to send a foto of a pedalai seedling I have in my nursery. It’s from our farm, we ate the fruit, and everybody agrees it’s pedalai. The leaves don’t look like your plant. The leaves on your ‘pedalai’ more closely resemble another artocarpus we have, anisophyllus.
Peter