The Tropical Fruit Forum

The sun and the dehumidifiers got the temp up to 79F today, so it’s starting pretty warm. Dessicant dehumidifier and 2 1500watt heaters should keep it above 60F. I’ve got 1500 watts of supplemental lights on inkbird 306T timers which should turn on in the middle of the night (and hopefully wake me up) if it ever drops below 55 on the warm side of the gh (cold side often goes down to 40-45).

Gonna be a little chilly on the prairies tonight, -50F projected with the windchill.

Interesting, My p. Edulis looks like it’s just about to flower as well. Oct-Dec was unusually cloudy here,  I do have supplemental lights as well. One year I did get a December crop but it must have been a sunny fall.

How did you determine how many hours of sunshine you have?

Roblack, Thanks for the response. No… in 4 season gh may get down to 55f with 80% rh at night. Flowering well otherwise. All my other mango are fine but are in the warmer drier area and are just putting out vegetative growth.

Those of us who container grow talk a lot about it in theoretical terms. I tried to go super scientific when I started, but it’s nearly impossible to employ proper experimental technique in small scale situations where you can’t control all the factors that are responsible for Plant growth. Properly testing soil for physical characteristics is interesting, but time consuming and boring to do. Proper nutritional  testing is interesting (I’ve done it) but it’s gets really expensive. Probably more important in large scale commercial plantings where proper randomization can be applied and where improved yields are the goal.

From a practical standpoint I think farmers usually pick crops that are well suited for their environment. It’s difficult to alter the soil to suit a specific crop. People on this forum are usually trying to grow things that need way more attention than your average farmer would provide.

Do they grows grapes nearby, if so I’m sure there is someone that could install a  6’ simple post & wire trellis. A poorly tended grape vine could provide a pretty good 3 season windbreak. I was in Palm Springs a week ago and there were lots of grapes in the mountains but they were dropping leaves. Not sure if it’s possible to have grapes growing up and passinfruits down so there is living cover year round.

There also must be native California seedling progam somewhere to provide plants for erosion, firebreak etc.

Careful if it gets cool with high humidity, that’s when you’ll get fungal issues. Vapour pressure deficit measurements are good for finding the ideal humidity for a given temp. It requires leaf temp not air temp (infrared thermometer). If it’s really high you may want to consider a dessicant dehumidifier as an alternative heat source.

What happened on Dec 10th? Also, There should be a way to get your day temps down. It’s not that big of a deal now…. But that first sunny spring day when you are work it’ll hit 125F.


 Also Did a bunch of research when I designed mine and I’m a non co2 enriched environment I don’t think you want your leaf temps much more than 85F. I realize it’s just for the winter, but they’d be less stressed and pests less of a problem.

Kishus are my favorites...
Here's last years Kishu crop...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZks5cfwkw4

Kevin

This fall I went from a 15gallon to a 25 gallon which sits in a 2” saucer that I don’t empty? And overflows when I water weekly.. Right now the tree has 20 fruit forming and is about to reflower like crazy. I only disturbed the outer 1” of the roots when I repotted. My soil temps are always >65f, air temps may dip down to 50 and I put a a bunch of cedar mulch in the bottom of the pot so the substrate won’t rot when sitting in water.

I think soil temps are super important for container plants. I used to water with cool water in the winter 50F, and most of my plants suffered, mango and citrus really bad. Things seem much happier now the water is 80-85F.

I’m a little surprised how little seems to be known about this fruit seeing as though they know it is resistant to greening?

Also very cool to see Canadians and Crimeans discussing citrus developed in Florida.

Yeah I had a minneola as well, because it too was my favourite citrus from the grocery store. The fruit it produced was terrible and didn’t even have the correct shape. I got rid of it last year I didn’t even top work it because it was so unproductive and scale prone.i may not have been providing it the right environment.