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Messages - FrankDrebinOfFruits

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 16
1
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Help identifying a fruit
« on: April 26, 2023, 03:58:33 PM »
Thanks Jabba and Nick C

2
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Help identifying a fruit
« on: April 25, 2023, 10:46:13 PM »
Need help identifying this fruit for a friend. Took 15 years to fruit from a seed.  It has a light sour taste to it like lemon.

Any help is appreciated.







3
Have you checked out Gods Little Acre Nursery, in San Jose. They usually have a pretty good selection of avos, and ones that do well in that climate.

4
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: anaphylactic shock from yellowjackets
« on: August 21, 2019, 05:59:36 PM »
We raise bees, and tried several times to get an epipen, and the doctor will not prescribe one unless someone in the family has a known allergic reaction. So we have not been able to obtain one.  Which is kind of ridiculous, since many people visit and we cannot know their status.

5
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Soursop fruiting in living room.
« on: August 13, 2019, 05:35:52 PM »
That is awesome, but I bet picking up leaves off the living room floor got old somewhere in the last 14 years. My soursop sheds leaves like crazy. Although, it could have made a lot of tea.

6
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Trip to Hawaii looking for fruit
« on: July 08, 2019, 05:36:51 PM »
I'll be there from August 9th till August 2nd.

Hawaii time is slow, but not that slow!  :P

7
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Stop Hori bat damage
« on: July 03, 2019, 04:06:51 PM »

Maybe is this guy:

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

That is hilarious... how have I not seen fruit batman before. He is the new mascot of my fruitarian lifestyle.  Hopefully he makes an appearance at the next fruit growers conference.  Forget catching robberies, I just wish he would solve only fruit crimes.

8
The size of the canopy is proportional to the size of the roots. When you cut the roots, expect canopy die back. The amount of roots that would need to be cut to move that tree would leave it with a 3 foot tall stump.

9
This sounds very expensive (energy, construction materials, utilities, labor). Wouldn't life be easier to spend the money and travel to Asia every year for 1 week, and do an all you can eat durian?  Life is short, why wait 10 years to get 1 durian and spend $15K to get that one durian, and be plagued by challenges?

On the other hand, I get it though....I am not sure how I could live without my trees either.

10
Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / Re: Durian Island Tour Invite
« on: April 04, 2019, 07:26:47 PM »
I want to do this.... one day.  :'(

11
I bought a maruyama MM181 . So far love it. Heads above the hand pump sprayer.

What I am missing is the mix ratios for sulfur and copper to prevent powdery mildew and anthracnose. I know, I could just try it, but I don't want to be too little and miss a mango season (life is short if you measure it by mango seasons!), or too much and just waste product (the copper is expensive).

I am assuming all misters would use about the same ratio of water to concentration product.

Thanks in advance.

12
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: New variety of Durians for $1000 each
« on: January 30, 2019, 11:55:10 AM »
The picture shows them in the supermarket, just sitting on a shelf.

Is crime so low that they can leave $1000 fruit out with apples and longons. Or is it that hard to hide to a durian on a person  :P

13
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Hawaii avocado trees
« on: September 24, 2018, 07:31:02 PM »
Oscar or Daniel or anyone growing these avocados can you comment on size and shape of the trees?  Any of these trees column shaped, any small vs gigantic etc?

OTA
Yamagata
Nishikawa
Murashige
Fujikawa

All my trees are under 4 years old and their growth habits change slightly as the root system forms. OTA and Murashige have a good shape, round squat, half sphere; which is how I like it for picking and maintenance.  Yamagata is very leggy, column like growth, hard to keep low. Column shape is probably great for back yards, but not so great for production/harvest reasons.  Yamagata gets a lot of pruning to keep under 7'.  Nishikawa is very crazy in growth pattern, long leggy upright growth.  I want to wait on Nishikawa for a few more years, my mind could change on its growth pattern as it gets older. I believe Fujikawa is a more moderate grower, dense canopy, easy to maintain.

14
I pick at stage 2 (slight yellowing), and put in the fridge. I haven't tested it scientifically, but the cold temps seem to kill the fruit fly larvae before it does too much damage. Extra protein. I know, some may find it gross, but better some than none.

I need to start setting fly traps out and around.

15
We never prep scions. Pretty common here in FL, to just snip and graft. Don't think there's much of a difference in rate of take. You can actually graft completely dormant budwood. Once you get cambium binding, the scion can live for months without needing to grow. Where it could potentially have an impact would be when using budding techniques, as it's sometimes hard to get mango budeyes to spring.

As far as sending budwood, one thing to be careful of is not to over moisten the media. Just a few sprinkles of water to maintain humidity within the bag is sufficient. Too much water can lead to early scion failure.

Wrapping with paper towel and inserting into ziplock back works well. Just be sure not to over moisten. Literally a few drops of water is enough.

Agreed (and if I did prep, I would leave a tad bit of the leaf petiole and not cut so flush to the scion material).  I have sent fresh cut scions just as Jeff described to people and take rates are usually very good.

Cutting flush to the scion allows the parafilm or buddy tape to have no air pockets for nasty mold/fungus to grow. Also, less chance that the leaf petiole won't poke through the parafilm wrap. I actually prefer flush cut with no damage to the bud.  Just my preference.... I have only done a few hundred grafts... so just a newb  ;) (and I am serious, compared to nursery people).

16
Need a follow up post  ;D

What are people using for packaging scions. Most come in a ziplock bag.  Inside the bag I have seen moistened vermiculite, small piece of lightly moistened paper towel, wrapped in moistened paper towel, dry and wrapped in para film/buddy tape... Any preference? Any drawbacks of each? I have yet to notice any...

17
I was out trimming some trees today. Have to see how it goes. It is supposed to be a cat 1 when it is south of here.  Last storm in April (16" of rain in 24 hours on this side of the island) I had my grafted young durians under 3 feet of water for 5 hours until the water drained out. I stood them all up after the storm and they all survived. I was quite surprised. I just planted another seedling a few weeks ago... and I was supposed to plant another this week.  It is a nice spot because of the access to unlimited water, but the negative side is that they have to survive these storms.

18
His friends are coming, and they mean business!


19
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Rambutan Fever in South Florida, USA
« on: August 10, 2018, 01:47:09 PM »
Once you try a good pulasan, you can easily forget about the greatness of rambutans.

I don’t think I’ve tried a good Pulasan. So, I’ll keep a lookout for them. Meanwhile, the Rambutan Fever continues.

P.S.
They (the Rambutan) are hairy and red, rivaling (if not overpassing) the beauty of the Lychee; This fact is also a big Commercial plus!

I don't get it, sorry.  I've had both, and I'm perfectly happy with a good lychee.  Kinda like arguing which mango is best. OS, LZ or PPK??  Wouldn't you be happy with any of those??

Lychees are good, but it a different class.  Lychees are a favorite any day. If the choice was between longan, rambutan, and pulasan. I might take the worst named pulasan variety over the best longan or rambutan variety. There are probably as many named pulasan varieties as longan varieties. 

Disclaimer: I have 3 longans and 0 pulasans growing, but it is on my search list. It is extremely hard to find a good grafted one here.

20
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Who grow Durian in South Florida?
« on: August 09, 2018, 09:14:34 PM »
That looks a lot like a jackfruit/other Artocarpus  ???

The good news is you have a much better chance with it :)
2nd, that looks like jackfruit or derivative. Along with the good news above, if you took really good care of it, you could get fruit in 3-5 years. Bad news, it should be a lot bigger to hold fruit. And will need plenty of room/water, a much/much larger pot.

Durian is 8-12 years to fruit (if you are lucky). They say that a durian doesn't reach it's peak flavor profile until the tree is 20 years old.  An extremely long investment on any lifespan. I look at the investment on trees in terms of probability (probability not to die due to disease, flooding, insects, probability to not move away from the house before the tree matures) and cost of ownership as an annual investment (time to prune, feed (fertilizers, wood chips, tree clippings), insecticides (if necessary), water, mow around, weed around, opportunity cost of not growing "something else" in that space).... Durian and mangosteen are the highest cost trees.  So besides the scarcity of the fruit driving up the price, the scarcity (lack of supply) is driven by the investment cost, and also directly drives up the fruit price because the grower knows how much he invested into it.

On the other hand pineapples, bananas, dragon fruit, and papayas are the perhaps the lowest cost ownership of any plants/trees.

21
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Rambutan Fever in South Florida, USA
« on: August 08, 2018, 08:44:53 PM »
Once you try a good pulasan, you can easily forget about the greatness of rambutans.

22
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Stolen fruit grrrr
« on: August 08, 2018, 02:01:34 AM »
I am planning on an electric fence. It will help to keep 2, 3 and 4 legged creatures out. All one legged and 5+ legged creatures are welcome :)

Reminds me of this joke https://youtu.be/nHcGLyrH4h4

Crap, most of my mangos are fiberless, now I have to worry about the guys with one tooth too.

23
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Best mango varieties for high rainfall
« on: August 07, 2018, 01:38:27 PM »
I am wondering if anyone has recommendations for disease resistant mangoes that fruit well in wetter tropics.  100+ inches rainfall annual east side big island hawaii.. I am growing relatives like odorata and kasturi. So far I have planted brooks late, maha chanok, rapoza, chock anon.  Most all fruits get destroyed by anthracnose on local trees.  Ive seen florigon do well but it is not so great of a mango.  Any suggestions would be most helpful thanks
Adam Crowe
Aina Exotics

In addition to the trees you have listed, I have had some success with Cac.   I have started top working a couple trees over to brooks late as it's a real workhorse in wet summers. My choc anon is still young and hasn't flowered. I have high hopes for Nam Doc based on surrounding farms doing well with it.

24
Is the major issue the ground slope under the woodchips? Excess water should still flow off the property if the property has proper drainage. How big an area are we talking?

If you want to breakdown the woodchips faster, use a diluted urea to help it breakdown.

If I had full clay soil, I would till in something to help with the absorption, since a lack of absorption would also slow growth.  Calcium carbonate or a lot of sand or something else to provide better drainage, small pea rock, etc. Starting with proper drainage is important though, otherwise ponding will always occur.  I have seen another picture of a guy that used an excavator and carved a checkerboard pattern to help reconstruct the soil, that was extreme though.

25
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Who grow Durian in South Florida?
« on: July 24, 2018, 08:51:11 PM »
Decided to add some data. Data analysis is what I do all day long...

Here is data on averages (fairly similar), but it's not the average low that is killer, it's the max low. 


Kauai Annual Temp


Lake Worth Annual Temp

If you could avoid that min low.... then you are in businnes.. The cost to avoid that min low is what is expensive.

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