The Tropical Fruit Forum

All I can say is, don't give up until the seeds rot.  Sometimes seeds will sit a long time without doing anything, but until they rot they may still be viable.  I've had tropical seeds sprout well over a year after planting!

Thanks, W.  I will try pure compost next time. 

It is also possible I was watering these too much, I'll try letting half of the next batch dry out a bit more instead of keeping them constantly wet.

Not black sapote.  Here's an actual black sapote seedling, from seeds of my own fruit.

two and a half years later... the root sucker cutting has grown slightly and is now fruiting for the first time.  The seedlings pretty much all died off.  It turns out this plant really likes shade and I was killing it with full sun.

I've had a ton of small plants mailed to me all times of year, from the heat of summer to the freezing winter.  Even the most sensitive plants, ex. mangosteen in winter when its freezing outside.  I have personally never had issues with the weather as long as I receive them as soon as delivered.  I have also bought plants in person at nurseries in CA and FL and mailed them back to myself or boxed them up and packed as checked luggage on planes. 

By far, the most important factor seems to be the amount of root disturbance.   Some trees I had barerooted pretty much all died.  Plants that were poorly shipped where dirt was everywhere tended to die. 

I have seen some sites mention lychee trees do not ship well, but I boxed up a 3gal and put it on a plane and it is doing just fine still. 

Seven years is probably enough that I'd recommend buying grafted.  Everybody I know is in a non-citrus climate anyway... growing in containers and/or greenhouses.

I've never even heard of this, will have to look it up.

Does it taste good??

Congratulations, of course!

Paypal (non-Friends+Family)/Amazon/Ebay/Etsy will all basically refund anything "significantly not as described" and they aren't going to waste their time reviewing each case.  Buyers have all the power so getting a refund is no issue.  Mailing back a dead plant is just part of the process (it proves you aren't just trying to score another one), but you won't have to pay return shipping if you process it correctly.  Worst that can happen is they won't sell to you anymore.  It seems silly to antagonize buyers when the odds are stacked in their court, but people are unpredictable. 


If I have a beef I tend to just not buy from that seller anymore and let it go.  But it is good to share you experience with others in case there's a trend. 

are you sure they aren't irradiated?

I always plant my seeds from any fresh mangosteen fruit I buy from the asian markets, but I believe they are irradiated and unlikely to be viable

Right before my last grafted green sapote died, I also noticed that it consistently put out nice new leaves but the old leaves quickly died and fell off right behind it, only weeks later.  In my case, the cause is very likely that the trunk was severely damaged due to Tanglefoot soaking through the fabric I smeared it over - it had become very cracked all around the trunk in only that area.

I recently got a new grafted green sapote and again it seems the old leaves quickly die though in this case the trunk is undamaged.  I haven't grown any mamey, but my other pouterias haven't shown this behavior.  Maybe there is something about green sapote where the leaves are short lived, or maybe it is just a coincidence.

In any case, I hope you have good luck with your tree

I haven't tried as they fruit *very* quickly from seed.  Do other eugenias root easily?  I hadn't seen it talked about which makes me suspect they do not root easily.

My suggestion about root suckers sort of depends on the parent tree being an air layer (or seedling I guess), but if grafting is hard, air-layering is possible, and root-suckers can be propagated easily it seems like a reasonable alternative to grafting or rooting.

I have been using rain bird 0.5-2.0gph drip emitters for years.  Short 1/4" tubing runs connected to larger mains, though the mains all dead end.  I haven't noticed pressure issues based on distance from main, but I have noticed that the emitters clog frequently and often have HIGHLY variable output.  I have ti replace about 10% of all emitters yearly. 

I will probably switch to spray emitters when my current drip emitter supply runs out