The Tropical Fruit Forum

Perfect that’s what I like to hear. Thanks Brian

What about jabos and cattely guava? Mine sit in 2” of water all the time and seem happy. Also could you plant on a mound? There are some university of Florida websites that discuss plating on high water tables.

Is this the first time you’ve had scale? How did u avoid it for so long? With the name poncirus I’m assumed you’ve had experience with citrus herpes?

I have 60+ plants indoors, all fruit trees/plants, and most are tropicals. Here is what I learned:

- Make sure you have enough humidity.
- Make sure you think of water drainage, unless you want water on your wood floors.
- Overhead grow lights will work great until the tree reaches a certain height, then you may need side lights.
- Be careful where you source your potting soil from; you don't want to introduce fungus gnats to your office. They are annoying to get rid of.
- Unless you have the space, don't grow species that require cross-pollination.

I currently use the Mammoth Lighting 2026 Nova Sun Series. They are awesome. I have fruited figs, strawberries, lemon guavas, pineapples, tomatoes, and peppers using these lights. They WILL add heat to your office.

Have you found any lights that work well and look “good”? I was hoping to replace my diy succulent setup in my kitchen.

Good to hear it tasted ok. My edulis vine that I potted up last summer and trained to 14 feet long just started to flower and set 3 fruit. Interestingly my mature vine is just showing hints of forming flower buds. I have supplemental light in the gh but the passionfruit get only a small amount of it. My gh is about 15deg off true north south so there must be a slight difference in sun exposure I guess?

Have u ever tried supplemental light in the winter?

Brian Thanks for the update. I gave up on my tangelo and now have fingers crossed for the sugarbelle. Lots of flowers this year.

Congrats, keep an eye out if u have mealeybugs. I’m pretty sure than an unrecognized infestation caused mine to rot. It may have been other things but it’s hard to tell.

Quote from: Tropicaltoba on December 09, 2025, 08:17:38 AM

A couple of questions: are the plants in ground, do you have a warm water line and do you have supplemental lights, and any year round pollinators?

I plan to install ground heating and grow plants in the open ground. It is also planned to install additional lighting and a rainwater collection system. But I wasn't thinking about heating the water. I missed that, thanks for the tip. We also need to think about pollinators, and we may have to purchase bumblebee families in the future to house them in a greenhouse.

I don’t have any experience with inground trees and am jealous of those who can try. I think Brian has a lot of experience with those. I also don’t have any experience with collection system. Eventually I’d love to figure out how to do automated fertigation…. But not sure it’s worth it for a small setup.

If you are doing lights invest in a PAR meter and educate yourself about light intensity (ummol not lumens). Don’t get lights right away, keep records of what natural light you have and calculate how much you need to get good winter light and then decide. No point spending money heating the gh above 7c if you don’t have enough light for the plants to grow.

If heating in the winter you will may need a dehumidifier/winter ventilation as well. This starts to get complicated especially for larger greenhouses. University of Florida has lots of info on their website.

I did some reading a while back and I don’t think bumblebees do well in a gh. I think mason bees could work but seem labor intensive. I use a long bamboo stick with an old makeup brush from my wife jammed into the end to reach my passionfruit vine.

That’s a nice sized greenhouse. You can probably grow anything with those temps, but if you are looking for fruit production there may be some issues.

A couple of questions: are the plants in ground, do you have a warm water line and do you have supplemental lights, and any year round pollinators?

Plants in pots cool quickly during long nights and the soil microbes that help make nutrients available aren’t very active below 15c. My citrus with soil temps <15c were very cholorotic unless I used synthetic fertillizer.

Some plants get shocked from cold water. Mangos will die unless the water is 20-25c.

Wet cold roots are not great for a lot of potted plants. Lots of perilite usually fixes that.

Low light can cause a lot of die back with warm temps. Natural light at 5c will probably induce dormancy in a lot of plants. With supplemental lights and synthetic fertillizer my citrus push new growth during the winter at >12c.

Self fertile plants are preferred. Most citrus, bananas, guava, tomatoes, hot peppers and figs fruit on their own. Yellow dragon also fruits without pollinators. Jaboticaba needs hand pollination but is easy to do. Feijoia is also easy but you need to have different cultivars flowering at the same time. Loquat and passionfruit are more time consuming but worth it.

Plants that require hand pollination that weren’t worth it for me include:
Atemoyas, very fussy and the timing is a pain, sugar apple fruit just wasn’t worth it. Still struggling to get reticulata soursop and cherimoya to produce fruit. Longan wasn’t worth it as the fruit is small and flavour just ok. Carambolla was also difficult and fruit wasn’t good enough to justify keeping. Cacao never set fruit, but I didn’t try very hard. Star apple (caimito) hasn’t set fruit yet either but the plant looks very nice.

My suggestion is start with a strawberry guava. No pests, drought and waterlogging tolerant very tolerant of salts. Fruit is great for a guava.

Citrus and figs and other guava work well but then you need to learn how to manage pests and proper watering/fertillizing which have a learning curve.

Best of luck.

Valencia pride for me. Plant is now almost 5’ in a pot. Do you think I should see if it can hold fruit this year?

Here’s my lemon haul for the fall. Meyer and bears. How long do I think u can keep they meters in the tree for? I wish they didn’t all ripen at the same time. Oh well as the saying goes….i guess I’m making lemonade.

Hey all, looking for some ideas insights. I am a greenhouse grower with plants in 20 gallon pots (6 feet tall) without pollinators and have reticulata and soursop. Tried for 2 years without success  to hand pollinate whenever I have multiple flowers at the right male/female stage. I’ve gotten sugar apple to set fruit but no luck with the others. Any suggestions?

Not really a recipe but I would often suffocate my fire pit to put it out which would make a lot of charcoal. I then used the acidic leachate from my bokashi fruit and veg peel waste to both activate the charcoal and neutralize the wood ash. The liquid would then be ph neutral and I would add it to fruit trees and very potassium rich. The charcoal would then be added to my pots instead of perilite/fir bark.

After a deep dive into the whole process I did become a little concerned about polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s). It seems that depending on the oxygen and temperature nasty byproducts could be produced. Now some PAH’s are formed in nature from wood decomposition and may be benign, but others can be nasty.

These may not be a big issue in the ground, but I do my stuff in pots in gh, and I think I could potential be an exposure problem.