The Tropical Fruit Forum

I save all my fruiting tree wood for my BBQ and smoker plus have used Liquidambar as good smoking wood also. Mulberry is excellent but not green wood now guava and allspice can be used green for aromatic smoke flavor.

Guava and allspice sound awesome. I know Jaboticaba is good too, but that's some precious stuff out here in CA.

My calycina made tiny aborted seed fruit when it was alone. With friends it made full size, full seed fruit.

My guabiju flowered last year, but did not set any fruit, so I added a few scions from another member to it to see if that helps.

If you need some scions lmk

Fell off when I poked it. It was about as ripe as you can get imo, but you can see I have a few more to try later. The tree was previously in ground and a collector gave it to me, it's in a 15 gallon pot now with about a 2" trunk, about 4' tall. I would definitely call this a mature specimen.

I eat a lot of junk fruits for the novelty, but yeah, not going to be looking forward to these honestly. I never finish off my strawberry guavas each year either.

Don't see the allure. Less pulp than strawberry cause massive seeds, bitter skin, and basically just strawberry guava flavor what little flesh there is.

It was probably grown in a shade house or something with no wind and not enough sun, hence being a little whippy.

Gentle movement of branches from wind stiffens them up, and the same is true for trunks, so I try to steer away from staking whenever possible. If I absolutely must stake, I do two stakes with the branch loosely held with tie to the right angle / height so that it can still move around some.

I am on team "you should prune the long arms" because it will branch out where you cut back to, you won't need to stake them, and annona like heavy prune jobs annually.

The San Marcos variety loquat I sent you gets a blush. It only happens on the afternoon sun side, and I think it just heat / sun related.

I have a few Erdon Lee seedlings here in SB.

 I have a big flowering yellow jabo and another member was kind enough to trade scions with me for cross pollination.  As such, I had to prune my tree.

I have some nice diameter branches if you want them.

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I know the discussion is about a more jungle / tropical type climate, but just to make you all laugh, I'll chime in from SoCal. If I stopped doing maintenance, I would wager about 75% of my stuff would die of thirst in the first year, and those that didn't die of thirst, would have their roots eaten by gophers in under 2-3 years because my landlord doesn't care about plants and pressure is super high here in the forest.

This is a reality I will have to face, at least for my in ground plants, since I rent where I live. I will be pulling out everything I can when the time comes, but some stuff just can't come out.

You all who get regular rain should thank the sky-gods.

Anyone have a source for guajava rootstocks? I can find airlayered plants here in nurseries for $40-$60 for 3g's but that's kinda steep. I want to propagate some of my rare psidium, which I've found graft onto guajava just fine.

Funny, I must be cursed.

I bought one that was nearly 8' tall and put it in ground maybe 18+ months ago it's very healthy but no blooms. The second one I got is nearly 5' tall in ground and same thing. Grrr... 

Prune it. Guava fruits at the tips.

Can they root from cutting?

Not that I know of. I have tried a few times with various methods.

I had purple pearl and the "giant" one they were selling as well, rats got a ton of them but they keep popping up. I should net a few seedlings. I have 4 or 5 seedlings out in the yard that are looking pretty good right now as well. I'll get some photos.