The Tropical Fruit Forum

Quote from: NissanVersa on Today at 08:06:02 PM

Im in zone 8b/9a and I lost a 12 year old Sabara in 17f freeze. 6 inch diameter trunk, 9ft tall.  It was big and protected. Had some more frost hardy jabos I was able to protect better and move the pots but they also were bitten a bit.  Folks are right, one hard snap at these lows and jabos are donezo.

Not exactly what I wanted to hear. Would it be possible if I dig it up at the first sign of trouble?

I don't get this. Just leave it in a pot and bring it in.

Thanks mods / admins!

Folks in 8a/8b lose almost all the growth from the season off of their Campo Ramons. I know of one in Seattle and one outside on Vancouver Island. Waiting for Spring updates from them.

I don't see the point for 7a / 7b outdoors with no protection. Maybe 50% of the years they'd survive, but that one brutal frost and they're donezo.

Quote from: K-Rimes on April 16, 2024, 01:48:34 PM

They are different in growth habit, and fruit. I have striatulum, I like it, good fruit with stinky guava flavor and soft flesh. It's definitely guajava-esque, but a more robust flavor which I am into. Other people have gotten bad genetics or something and say the fruit tastes bad. I count myself lucky.

The nano-leaf looks like guajava style fruit with some tiny leaves.

The "nana" looks like a dwarf guajava with standard leaves but small port.

So they're all different. Thanks for the clarification, K-Rimes. Do you happen to know if any of these are graft compatible with the typical guava?

With a name like Sir Graftalot, you should be the resource on this one!

I kid. I am finding basically all psidium within a reasonable window of relationship will work with each other. I have been getting guineense onto guajava successfully, which suggests that all of these should be compatible.

I did try striatulum onto guajava last year, which did not take, but I would chalk that up to me making a mistake. I will probably try again this year.

Very few fruits here in SB county, even on the most reliable and productive trees there are only a scant few racks of loquat on them. Very strange. I hear the same for almost all of SoCal.

Drought and Amazon are two words I would hope to never see in the same sentence.

Frightening.

Rainforests all over the world are in rough shape. The Amazon is but one of them. BC in Canada where I'm originally from is about to enter the worst drought in recorded snow history. Their snowpack is at an all time low, and it is the second year in a row that it is low which will compound this year's issues. My family had to water cedar trees around their property so they didn't die last year... Going to be a doozy this year.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-snowpack-april-2024-drought-river-forecast-centre-1.7169544

Meanwhile, in Santa Barbara, CA we've had the most rain in a 2 year period, breaking our 1951 record.

It's not just hotter, but things are just plain weird, and extreme.

The only guava I know of with leaves like that, and red interstem, is Cas guava. It's a real looker, whatever it is.

The "caatinga" is definitely of the Guineense complex, rounded leaves. Not veiny.

Looking good Mike! Those little leaf varieties have been slow going for me too, I have a few from David, but they're doing ok now that it has warmed up and it's Spring(ish) here. 39f last night though, and they're outdoors. :|

I'll get some more photos of the guava gang today

Do you know which guineense you have K-rimes?

Don't know, but these are big yellow fruit, and fruit in bunches, which matches up with "Caatinga". I also have a "morango" guineense that is doing pretty well in a 5g, it may fruit this Fall, and then I got that pack of seedlings from David too - but many died due to fungal issues in my greenhouse. I only have I think 3 guineense varieties from that batch that survived winter. I know Caatinga is one of them. I would happily have another, great fruit.

It was interesting visiting Kelly recently, many of his guavas he said tasted bad are ones I like. His striatulum was awful, he said, mine is pretty pleasant. I have punishing winters which also is not great for guava ripening... Dunno. The Guineense is great for a variety of reasons, one of which is that it's continuing to flower and Nate reports it flowers and produces almost all year. This is crucial for me with zone pushing location cause it'll get the heat it needs to ripen properly.

Myrtoides sucks!


Guineense IS AWESOME

Quote from: sc4001992 on January 02, 2024, 11:07:40 AM

My seedling white sapote trees all fruited in 5-10 years by letting the central leader/trunk grow without being topped off.

I wish I read this sooner, my seedling got taller than me and was looking lanky and ungly so I did the deed I hope I will get to taste it in my lifetime.

Don't think it'll make a big difference. You'll get fruit. Them being super lanky and tall is really common.

My harshest planting area on the property, soil is paper thin, maybe 4-6" deep above sandstone. At the top, a ice cream bean, middle pakistani mulberry, bottom black pom. I rarely water here, they do ok at best.


Fig forest is starting to fill in, and I have a good number of breba crop, so that's exciting.


Up potted this campo ramon jabo seedling that is probably about 4 years old now. Really stunning flush of red.


Panche tiger and an LSU purp, with a newly planted coffee cake persimmon that I added some chocolate to for some cross pollination. No takes on the chocs yet


A bunch of NZ variety feijoa are looking good, it's mostly topworked now with: white goose, mammoth, anatoki, wiki tu, improved coolidge, nikita, nazemetz,


Sabara rootstock, grimal interstem, paulista, restinga, zona de mata, navel, malacacheta jabo cocktail


Sabara about to blow up with new growth, it has put on some good weight in the half tote


Santa rosa plum left, peruvian apple cactus middle (yuzu lime tucked behind it), orange guava at the top, guabiju tucked below that, flavor king right, a lucuma and calycina are in the soil to the right


Breba on LSU something or other


This is the first year I've seen mushrooms in my soil. It's the second year I've mulched really heavily. When I first started working this area, it was pure sand, no loam at all.


Nice mycorrhizal growth in the mulch


White mulberry loaded up. Last year the entire crop was moulded out by late rain


Stenocereus queretaroensis in the ground. I have a row of cacti here, not all shown, but opuntia: apricot glory, st rosa, papaya and a few PCH selections. I will probably put all my queretaroensis in ground here, have another 4 or 5 plants.


My greenhouse was hit by some serious fungal issues and I have had to empty it. I need to rebuild it, clean and sterilize it, and figure out a sealing solution. My landlord's downspout dumps out right into the side of it, so it flooded a bunch this rainy winter

It has been an aberrant El Nino which usually creates droughts in Eastern and Northern Australia and was predicted to do so. The reverse was true.

La Niña is supposed to be dry and cold in CA and we got blasted with rain last year. El Niño is supposed to be warm and wet and we also got blasted this year in CA. I don't know if whichever one of these we're in is a consistent predictor of rain, and gone are the years of it being supposedly 4 years of one and 4 years of another. My late landlord who lived on the property for 60 years mentioned that things were drastically and permanently different from when she first moved in: it used to rain a lot more, it was never 110+, and there were annual hard frosts. I wonder what she would think of the last few years, had she still been with us. I was expecting the well to run dry during our drought period and now the water table is up 30'...

Australia seems to ping pong between record drought and record flood. I recall almost a decade of drought there or something in the news, then absolutely mind blowing floods to follow.

I am quite curious to see how the hurricane season stacks up in the Atlantic with such warm water conditions this year, apparently will be a doozy.