The Tropical Fruit Forum

That's awesome! Well done!

Topworking is easy to learn - I learned by watching this guy's videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqTfCGTcJnU. I've successfully topworked two trees learning from videos. For beginners, instead of just grafting 3-4 shoots, graft onto more shoots (like 10 or more), since they won't all take. Once the grafts take or don't and have started growing you can trim away those that didn't take. If you had good luck and they all took, then reduce down to the best 3-4.

I tried these on a recent trip to Asia and they were tasty. I recall them being sort of plum like in flavor. What's the trick to eating them to avoid the latex? I'd never seen them before and I puzzled over how to best tackle one. I ended up slicing them in half and eating them sort of like a kiwi using a spoon. That was messy, but worked ok.

I'd recommend emperor lychee. Mine fruits consistently every year in 9b and is the most low care tree I have. I've found it to be slightly more cold tolerant than mango, but it will still need protection in harsh years (more than brief dip below 32).

atemoya also does great. Mine is in ground and I give dome protection on cold years - but really easy to keep small so I expect it would be easy to keep on a container.

Mangos can do great if you are willing to cold protect- they are all the same from a cold hardiness perspective.

Anyone have mango scions to share? I can trade - I've got pickering, manilita and maha chanok. I am also willing to pay postage or purchase if the number of pieces in a minimum order isn't high.

Really nice advise Jeff! I looked yesterday and wasn't sure what I'd do with such a shape. But I can completely visualize what you suggested!

I was wondering if the fruit touching the bag would still get stung. With these big bags most of the fruit are not touching the  bag. Might be worth just culling the few that are touching the bag so they can't introduce insects inside  big bag! Will look tomorrow when it is light to see how many are touching.

Trying out these giant net bags- saw them when I went looking for the small ones to put over individual fruit. Very easy to install. Hope they are effective- I've lost every peach for 4 years running to fruit fly maggots. I've tried sprays & traps - don't work. Fingers crossed for peaches this year!

Anyone willing to share scions for postage? This variety is hard to get a graft to take, and last year's grafts failed. I can't justify buying more scions by the piece for this variety, but would still like to try again if anyone is doing some pruning and is willing to share the pruned off tips=) I've got manilita, pickering and maha chanok and would be willing to trade scions as well.

My Manilita is usually first to bloom in December or January. It is just starting to bloom now. Pickering is in full bloom, others still dormant. Hoping this will be the first year I get blooms on the Angie that I top worked to Maha Chanok. Seeing some bud swell - hoping it is blooms:)

Was 33 here this morning for about 4 hours. (Oviedo)

I doubt it would be too hot - I use 300watt trouble lights plus a string or two of c9 lights inside a 8' plastic dome. My rule is I turn it on when temps hit 40 and turn it off in the morning when temps come up above 35. Now that m y trees are mature, I only use the trouble lights and domes if a hard freeze is predicted. For light freezes I just use c9 lights and no dome. That's fine for up to about 6 hours between 28 and 32. The full dome setup adds about 8 degrees of protection, some damage starts happening if temps stay lower than 24 for anything more than a brief dip - like 2009/2010's winter was. It is actually more likely that your dome will cook your plant during the day. My setup is great for cold, but when daytime temps get into the 60s or more the dome has to come off or the temp inside quickly spikes up to over 100. I hung a temp gauge I could read remotely inside my domes for the first few years - great way to learn. Oh and do make sure you run the calculation of how much wattage is being drawn on a single line so you don't overload the capacity of your extension cords or overload a fuse...