The Tropical Fruit Forum

Can anyone think of any fruit trees discussed here that could be injured from brief exposure to temps 40-45F (4.5-7.2C)?

I am starting to bring my most cold sensitive plants into the greenhouse as lows are now in the 40s.

I'm aware of mangosteen and cherapu, durian, plus the various soapberries that are known to be completely intolerant of cold.  I believe the other garcinias commonly available are fine until 30s.   Any artocarpus this sensitive?  Syzgiums?  Pouterias?

The only thing questionable I could think of that I actually have outside right now is spanish lime and malay apple, which I just brought in.  The "ultra tropicals" I have never leave the greenhouse. 

Edit- cacao too

I was always interested in this fruit but had never seen it available for sale.  I bought a grafted hermaphrodite tree but it is painfully slow growing, and I'm not confident it will ever make it to fruiting.  The other day I noticed Lara Farms is selling the fruit so I ordered a box, and it just arrived today.  They seem very fresh.

It tastes nice.  As described, there is little flesh but what there is is juicy and sweet, and adheres to the large seed.  The taste reminds me more of soursop than citrus lime, and the experience of trying to get the flesh off the seed was much like eating soursop for me. 

If you bite into the fruit with the skin on there is a slight pressure inside that easily splits the skin like an egg and it comes right off.  I would say eating a bowlful of them is about the same effort as eating cherries, maybe a little more work.

I'm really happy I got to try them.  They seem like they would be a nice novelty tree to grow, especially if a single hermaphrodite tree can fruit in a container at a reasonably small size (no idea if this is actually possible).  I don't think I would bother trying to grow a big tree with a large amount of them, though. 

they still have more if anyone is interested, $9/lb for 5lbs:  https://larafarmsmiami.com/products/mamoncillo-aka-guenip-aka-spanish-lime

I got one of these plants as a small seedling (or it might have been a rooted cutting) around this time in 2021.  I put it in a container in my greenhouse and over the winter its roots had broken through the pot down into the ground and it started growing rapidly.  In spring it had started vining, climbing up my greenhouse wall.  It started flowering around this time, too, and set at couple of fruit clusters.  By mid spring I had pulled all the container plants out of my greenhouse but I left this one as it was creating some shade in the greenhouse which was nice in the hot sun.  In summer I found the fruits from earlier had dried out and become "nuts".  I opened them up, the nuts are shaped flying saucer candy.  I roasted them a bit in the oven and they taste nice.  Not quite as good as true peanuts, but I would definitely eat a bag of them if available. 

Over the summer the vine has become massive and covered a third of the greenhouse wall.  It grows like wild grape.  It put out thousands and thousands of flowers but almost no fruit set.  I assume because there are few pollinating insects in my greenhouse, I'm not sure if it would also benefit from cross-pollination. 

It seems like a good crop if you have the right environment and land.  I have read that farmers let it grow and mostly ignore it, and then come back later and cut the whole thing down and harvest thousands of dried pods at once.  Definitely not a good fit for a northern greenhouse, though.  It was getting big enough to crowd out my other trees and not producing food, and not terribly attractive looking.  I cut it all out and only found a few more pods on the entire thing. 

I had planted a cutting in spring and it seems to root easily, btw. 

this image was right when it started climbing, it was ten times this size by the time I cut it down a few months later


fresh green nuts


dried edible nuts



I cut it all out

I was surprised to find a bunch of flowers on my seedling Ross Sapote today.  I bought this as as a 9waters starter seedling almost exactly four years ago, and I had neglected it somewhat.  I was thinking it would take 7+ years to fruit and I had already bought a grafted Ross to replace it this year so I paid it little attention.  It was showing some kind of leaf discoloration I never looked into, I had cut off a bunch of limbs to attempt grafting lucuma onto it (no luck), and it was almost girdled by its own plant label I didn't expand with growth.

I really like my Bruce Canistel and everybody says Ross is better than other Canistels. 

I have had this grafted hermaphrodite spanish lime for a couple years and it has never really thrived, growing slowly and dying back without much net gain.  Also, all leaves show this brown crust over time to varying degrees.  It doesn't seem to match the pattern of sunburn as it seems to happen sparsely across all leaves and even when in mostly shade.  I took a macro picture and it isn't any kind of scale insects.  Any idea what this might be?

I have a container ice cream bean that has flowered bunch of times over the past year or two but never set fruit.  Today I noticed this growth... is this the start of a fruit pod?  I see a bit of black on them so even they are fruitlets they might drop quickly.

I only have one mature inga so there is no cross pollination.  I started lazily hand-pollinating this spring by simply running my finger across all the flowers when I saw them, as the bees didn't seem interested in the inga flowers.

I never tried these until now, got about six of them this year.  They are slightly sweet, no sour and no off tastes.  Flesh texture and ratio is much like surinam cherry.  One thing I dislike about surinam cherry is that scale insects like to gather in the folds and dimple at the bottom, but savannah cherry doesn't really have any place for them to hide. 

Could be a little sweeter, hoping with time it makes some sweeter fruit.  The ones riped to dark purple/black are definitely better than the red, the lighter ones are very bland

I haven't seen anything change to "Available" status in months and haven't seen any posts from Oscar in a while.

I know people there were some complaints here, but he sometimes had things you couldn't find anywhere else.  It seems that many things are still listed as available, but nothing new.  Maybe he was importing the others and no longer is?  And the available stuff is local? 

It seems like my suebell is holding fruit for the first time this year.  Not sure how big these fruit get nor if they self-shed the excess reliably.  Should I reduce these fruit clusters down to one or two fruit each?  Or just leave it alone.   It seems like too much for a container tree

I noticed a bunch of flower bracts for the first time on this plant today.  I received this as a tiny seedling in Apr 2019.  A year or two ago wind snapped the whole trunk but it sprouted new growth and I let it regrow as a bush form.  I have it in a 20gal container

Anybody grow this one or try the fruit?  I heard the fruit isn't all that great, unfortunately, but I'm still looking forward to trying it. 

Mine is pretty sore looking right now because it is getting ready to drop all its old leaves while putting out new growth, but it looks great most of the time. 

I found this white pummelo at a local asian market, any idea what type it might be?  It is large, heavy, unusually thin rind for a pummelo.  Seedless, dry (not juicy), teardrop shaped.  It is very good tasting.

Sometimes I end up with moderate to large trees in containers that can't handle a strong wind without risk of snapping the trunk or major limbs.  I end up putting a strong stake in the container, but I have to rig wood blocks, clamps, wire, something like that to keep the stake in place.  I envision an obvious solution to this problem, a "wrought iron" ring & post, and I've seen variations of this design for holding candles, small containers, etc as decorations, but nothing substantial.  Anything purpose built as decorative will be way too expensive, need something industrial, hoping there is some construction use of such a stand as building materials are sold practically at cost.   Bending rebar might be possible but I've never tried bending the thicker types, 1/2" rebar would be too weak for this use I think. 

Any ideas?

I understand that Kishu mandarins have a reputation for being tasty but too small for commercial cultivation.  I don't quite understand this, as they aren't really smaller than most of the mandarins sold as clementines/cuties/halos/whatever.   They are consistently seedless, excellent tasting, and very easy to peel. 

This are definitely one of my favorite varieties of the citrus I've grown, and they are quite productive even in a container. 


They are ripe when green-yellow for me, and are approaching overripeness by the time they are fully orange

Here's the ones I just picked, with a typical persian lime for size comparison