The Tropical Fruit Forum

I managed to get 5 or 6 seedlings to survive (not all sprouted, and some rotted after sprouting). I counted 23 cotyledons on one seedling, so they’re legitimate! I’ve been keeping them on my front porch over concerns of rain. I water them very sparingly (and they’re in a blend of pro mix and cactus soil), and they seem to be doing great. Now I’m wondering when I should separate them.

Someone mentioned Kei Apple, but those fruits are really delicious and the shrubs, while thorny, are very compact. The San Diego Zoo has a bunch spread around and I pick some of the fruits when they're ripe and they're great. They're also very easy to eat, unlike the vast majority of specialty fruits, because you just eat it whole. No pit.

Can you detail the flavor profile? Kei Apple was always off my radar because I had thought it was a sour fruit. I don’t mind some tartness in my fruits, but I’m definitely biased towards sweetness, and I end up using most of the sour stuff in juices. For some perspective, I like eating oranges and pineapple out of hand, but lemons and passion fruit end up juiced with a big dose of sugar. Meanwhile, I eat my pitangatuba out of hand (if only due to size; I feel like juiced would be better). I had a Ketembilla years ago that I would enjoy out of hand despite the tartness, but I ultimately cut it down ‘cause it was too inconvenient to peel the fruit, and the skin had a minor bitter element that I did not care for (even the jelly we tried to make had that bitterness).

I’m not fond of thorns, but I have no trouble overlooking them for the sake of a good fruit. So how’s the Kei Apple?

Thanks for the report! How long did it take to flower? The fruit looks similar to Pitangatuba, which is apparently variable in sweetness (but almost always sour).

My glazioviana has been flowering for a couple of years now, but it refuses to set fruit. Any idea why? Does it need a mate? It’s right next to a fruiting vexator, so clearly hybrids aren’t happening.

I’ve grown Alpines from seed here in Puerto Rico. No fuss. I’m starting them again and have a few seedlings growing. Once they get past the seedling stage, they are very tough plants, handling heat waves and full-day burning sun like champs. They seem to bear fine under care, but production grows sparse when overly neglected (my neglect grew to the point of eventually killing my prior plants, but they survived under that neglect for several consecutive years). Despite their name and origins, they are very much not fussy about high temps and air humidity variations. Soil & watering might be the biggest concerns, but they’re also the most easily-handled concerns.

I have Rhipsalis baccifera, and one clone at my grandmother’s house regularly bears fruit, which I share with my niece. They’re slightly firm (sticky inside, not juicy), mildly sweet and rather insipid, but pleasant. I had brought back the cuttings from a tree they were growing on in a college campus in Mayagüez. Not something you’d go out of your way to grow for the fruit, but enjoyable if you have them on hand.

Thanks for the document!

How should I go about preparing and planting them? This is my first time growing any conifer from seed. My initial plan was to soak them for a week with twice daily water changes, like I did with my Baobabs. I think they’re native to a dry region that gets cool, but not cold, in the winter.

I was actually thinking about this topic last week, so it was a welcome surprise to find this thread.

I did some searching, by no means exhaustive, but I did focus on those cacti that are used predominantly for fruit production, not those that are incidentally edible-fruited (with good flavor).

The best for edibility (in no particular order) seem to be Prickly Pears (Opuntia spp.), Bilberry Cactus (Myrtillocactus geometrizans), Apple Cacti (Cereus repandus/peruvianus; also C. jamacaru, C. hildmannianus), desert Pitayas (Stenocereus queretaroensis, S. thurberi; also S. griseus, S. stellatus, S. pruinosus, S. marginatus, S. gummosus), Dragonfruit (Selenicereus undatus, S. costaricensis/polyrhizus, S. megalanthus, and hybrids), and Barbados Gooseberry (Ora-pro-nobis as a leaf vegetable, Pereskia aculeata).

Honorable mentions include Saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea), Cardón (Pachycereus pringlei), Leuenbergeria (Pereskia) bleo, Rhodocactus grandifolius (leaf vegetable), and Epiphyllum hybrids (Disocactus; there was a thread here that singled out “Argus”, “Padre”, “Daybreak” and “Fern La Borde”).

Here’s a Spanish article about the fruiting Stenocereus:
https://huerto-en-casa.com/pitayas/

Here’s the video that convinced me to seek out Stenocereus (queretaroensis is depicted, though they don’t mention that):
https://youtu.be/g1s1RhnrIfM

With an additional (Spanish) video showing an orchard that grows several species of Stenocereus for commercial production:
https://youtu.be/RQ9UlZYJq3c

Here’s the thread on Fruiting Epiphyllums:
https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=15813.0;all

Here’s an article that mentions several named prickly pear fruiting cultivars (among other cacti), but I haven’t found any of them (most net searches lead me to believe that practically any random opuntia can prolifically bear tasty fruit, though I don’t know about that):
http://jamesenterprisesoftexas.com/pear.htm

I myself have an unnamed spineless Opuntia, three Bilberry Cacti, several unnamed Dragonfruit (and some Palora yellow megalanthus), Argus and Padre Epiphyllum (I can’t find “Daybreak” or “Fern La Borde”). All are still small.

Note: even spineless Opuntias have glochids. Handle with care.

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I also tried to grow another succulent, Carpobrotus glaucescens, a few years back, as the fruit is said to be quite good. But despite being advertised in almost weed-like terms, it failed to thrive once it hit adulthood. The dryness hurt it, water hurt it more, the sun hurt it even more, and the shade seems to have been worse. I haven’t the foggiest idea what went wrong that time... but if there’s a chance at success, I’d like to try again. I got my seeds from Fair Dinkum Seeds, and shipping used to be cheap, but I don’t know if that continues to be the case.


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Edit: Mammillaria fruit seems to be a popular forage in Zacatecas, Mexico. Not sure on the species though. The fruit is called “Chilitos” (little chiles).

I had a good enough harvest from the Dioscorea bulbifera from Caesar to show and even eat. I picked bulbils and dug out  tubers to relocate them this spring. They were strong growers and began to overtak some young mango trees planted close by.

The flesh is yellow and not so slippery as most yams. I fried some and the taste was excellent, very neutral flavor with nothing off-putting, equal to potato. The batch pictured I left the skin on but it was too tough to chew, however it pulled off easily with no waste.

One thing about these is they are good eating and the outward appearance is pretty regular, smooth and not gnarly bumpy or covered with roots. Plus they do taste very good!

I am so glad that they fared well for you! I was beginning to worry that the beetles would impact your harvest too much to make them worthwhile.

The cooking description is well appreciated as well, and I’m glad you liked them. I sometimes worry (despite feeling that I oversell their productive qualities) that I undersell them in terms of flavor... condemnation by faint praise, you could say. But while it’s true that I’ve had better yams in terms of flavor, I really do enjoy the air potatoes, and I’ve nothing negative to say about them when eaten fresh (I’ve only felt distasteful bitterness from air potatoes left sitting for a long time).

I harvested this Air potato two days back, it weighed a whopping 3.1lbs.

That’s an aerial bulbil? It’s huge! How old was the root that produced it?

About 3 months back I found this Yam growing on a tree in my farm. It looks as if I had planted the tuber two or three years back and had not noticed the vine.



The vine is different in that, it has 6 ridges and not 4 as compared to other Dioscoreas I have, and there are small thorns in the ridges.
Last week when I checked on the vine it had dried up and the seed tubers were falling down. So yesterday I decided to dig up the tuber. Initially the tuber appeared the thickness of a thumb but as I went deeper it became thicker, but it is so tender that the slightest pressure on the soil would break the tuber, as you will see from the no. of pieces! Finally after a depth of about two and a half feet, the tuber had grown into the root of the tree and I had to abandon my attempt.

After boiling the tuber, when I tasted it I got a surprise! It is the tastiest Yam I have eaten! It is very creamy and unbelievably 'White' !!

Six ridges and thorns are within the range described for the species, but I’ve never seen it myself. The vine is very likely to grow back from the portion remaining in the soil.

Alatas are often some of the best yams out there. Rarely have I had any bitter ones, the worst ones I’ve had were fibrous, but those were few and far between. I’m partial to rotundata myself, but that’s because I mash them, so it doesn’t matter that they’re hard and dense. Alatas are generally soft, they practically melt in your mouth, and can fall apart and dissolve with long cooking, no mashing required (unless you prefer it). At least, that’s been my experience with the varieties I’ve had here.

The mother root has been in the ground two years. Every three years I dig up the mother root to boil and eat, as it is tastier than the arial tuber. I plant a new one in its place.

Have any roots older than that remained in the ground? Have you noticed a difference in quality, size and production with older vines?

Anyone have any yams they want to trade? I have a fee types of bulbifera: Hawaii and Mexico. As well as a few alata cultivars: Emperor(i think was the name)) purple, another purple, yellow and white fleshed alatas.

PM sent! I’ve lost some varieties, and am interested in getting them back.

This bulbifera tuber I had dug up yesterday and it weighed 4.756 kgs or  about 10.5 lbs. After boiling, it was soft but not mushy and slightly sweet! Much better than the arial tuber.

I guess it pays to renew the stock every once in a while! I think I may start doing that myself with my own bulbiferas.

I’m sorry to say that the bumpy CV-2 was among the varieties I lost (though CV-1 remains a survivor for me). I’ve justified growing them in totes for so long out of a fear of losing them to my heavy soil. But after several losses despite my best efforts, I get the feeling that they might actually have a better chance of weathering drought and accessing nutrients in my heavy clay instead of the tote containers.

I dug up these Dioscorea esculenta tubers today. Tubers from this vine is what Caesar has.

They’ve borne decently well in the totes, but this next year I may put them into the clay ground as well. All I need is a pickaxe to fluff the soil at planting, and a good layer of mulch. They make good eating, but my methods haven’t been good at yielding larger tubers (even the usually prodigious rotundata has repeatedly yielded baseball-sized tubers in my totes).

God I wish there were more folks involved in cultivating and selling the edible bulbiferas. It's an extraordinary producer and I'd love to get my hands on some.

I’ve been wishing the same for a long time. At the height of my collection, I had no less than 9 varieties (and possibly more). I’m now down to 3, at least. If there were more growers, replacing them would be simple, but now I’m nearly at a loss as to how to replace them. Some of my own sources no longer sell them. As to my own situation... it is the same as when I first started in this forum. The same little suburban backyard. No farm, no land. My efforts at obtaining them have waned, but I’ve not fully given up, and am looking forward to this next year. But to return from the digression, my current state of affairs is not conducive to the preservation of a species, let alone multiple varieties of space-needy vines.

In terms of bulbifera, I still have CV-1, Saipan Purple, and Mae-sai Yellow. I believe Sena may still be available from Stephward Estate (though they wouldn’t likely call it that, I named it on my end). The one I call Nonthaburi Yellow still seems consistently available from the same eBay vendor. I still have my contact for the Tefoe varieties (Purple, Green, Yellow), but I haven’t contacted him in a long time, so I don’t know if he’s still online. I don’t know where to re-acquire Odisha Yellow, Africa or Mexico, and my source for Hawaii has been difficult to reach on my last attempts.

This has been my pet project, one of my most important efforts, and my failure to yield good results with what should be a very productive species has taken a mental toll on me. It is actually the biggest reason why I’ve dropped off the forums for so long.

The last couple of years I have propagated a bunch of dioscorea with varying soccess. The alatas went crazy. A few other types did o.k. About January when the vines had all dried out and some bulbous started dropping I carefully collected the bulbils and brought them into the house. Early March I put them in pots and back outside. Then the critter raids started. Everything got mixed up and no labels were left in place. Guess I'm going to have some now unidentified dioscorea....

Fading labels and shared containers were a big issue with my ability to identify varieties. Species ID is a cinch, but good luck telling different varieties apart during the growing season.

Any news of the Blueberry Tree?

I’ve heard blueberry cuttings are hard to root unless you have a misting system on the root end.

Hello.

Since my last post in this thread, I've had several more fruit fall from the tree, fully ripened. And my verdict... Highly disappointed.

I tried them almost fresh off the tree as well as several ripening days later, and that chemical smell I mentioned earlier finally made itself potent in the flavor. For my particular palate (and those of my family), it was noxious and foul. Less intense in the fresh fruit vs the extra ripened fruit, I nonetheless found it intolerable to eat, and unpleasant to smell regardless of ripening time. What's worse... I didn't even get to taste the nuts. I couldn't figure out how to get the pulp off without using my teeth (and I really didn't want to use my teeth). I tried boiling and rubbing by hand or by strainer, and it was nearly impossible for even a couple of seeds, let alone several fruit's worth. And the seeds in these first fruits were thinner than expected, so I'm not sure I would've gotten a particularly good yield.

I'm a bit heartbroken over it... This tree was supposed to tide me over until I got some Macadamias up and growing. Am I alone in having an unpleasant experience with this tree? I've tasted Durian (frozen, I might add), and strange though it was, it didn't leave the bad impression that Mocambo did.

Congratulations my friend! This is a awsome achivement even if this fruit don't get matured. 

Thank you Luis! I've been waiting a long time for this fruit... Would've had a shorter wait if I had stuck it kn the ground soon after arrival. Oh well, you go with what you can. 

Are there more fruits on the tree?
Pataxte fruits fall on their own when they are ready.  At that point the fruit is yellow and could still wait a couple of days to ripen more.  They should smell and the shell needs to be cracked open.
I don’t think anyone can say whether the fruit in the photos could be any good or the seeds be viable.
Suerte,
Peter

Thanks for the info. There's at least two more on the tree. I guess I'll wait for these two to turn yellow and smell. If they look like they're about to go bad instead, I'll crack 'em open then. Hopefully the tree will be able to handle the weight of the other two fruits.