Email features have been reactivated 4/17/24
Show Posts
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
My Abiu seedlings went through a similar traumatic experience. I kept my ~20cm seedlings outside as the temperatures started to get cool last Autumn, the lowest they saw would have been 3C or 4C. They were looking unhappy and leaves were shrivelling and dying, so I moved them into a mini-greenhouse that I bought. I thought they would enjoy the warmer temps and high humidity but instead they got a lot worse. They looked like they were rotting alive, and there were brown spots.It seems they hate the humidity. They got really bad and after about a month I decided that they should go inside because they weren't getting better and were running out of leaves - only a few left on the plants. After moving them inside they slowly started to improve and even push growth after a while however the growth has been pretty flimsy. 3/5 plants made it.
The survivors have been pushing flimsy growth and 2 of them are producing semi-variegated leaves that lack a lot of chlorophyll. The strongest seedling pushed flimsy growth for a few moths and now is now finally pushing some good leaves.
So yeah that is the story of my abius that got through a similar situation and kind of made it. I hope it's helpful.
In the future I'm just going to keep my plants inside if and when they get cold stress. Lesson learned; they hate greenhouse humidity.
That's the opposite of what I thought, thanks for your input. I assumed mine had not had enough humidity. I ordered two seeds of Pouteria bullata, so I'll probably try keeping one in a less humid environment to see if that helps. I'm still really sad because the Abiu was growing so well during summer, and then just suddenly kicked the bucket...
Rob From Sydney, pouterias continue growing all winter long for me in my greenhouse. I think this is key
Some other plants go dormant for me even though low temp is maintained at a tropical 55F.
I got 10 seeds from Oscar / FruitLovers 18months ago and ended up with four healthy plants. Pretty wide variance in growth, some were slower to get going. These have been in mostly shade for two months because I had to move all my plants to a different area while having my deck rebuilt. I agree they seem to prefer a lot of sun and not too much water, they looked better in June. You can see the leaf patterns that look like overwatering
Because I don't have time to lift every pot to gauge dryness when watering, I try to adjust the container size for every plant based on its water consumption. If a tree seems overly wet I down-pot. Overly dry I up-pot. I've been getting lazy with my soil mix lately, just re-using old material and now it has too much fine organic dust, I need to mix in some turface and mulch.
The smallest one I lost the label, it is either green sapote or canistel but I'm almost 100% certain it is green sapote now, my canistels look a little different.
nitida leaves are more similar to montana and muricata. Youre leaves look similar to Annona neosalicifolia.
here is a couple pictures of A nitida 'Pera'
I've seen a video from someone who had them planted outside and they got -2.3C and the plant has not died. So who knows maybe I can put them in ground and hope for the best.
Looks like a smaller tree, how big is the tree? Have you tried grafting to canistel?
Yeah its more of a spreading lower growing plant. Its about 3-4' tall but spreads about 6'. I havent tried grafting it yet. It just seems so different from outher Pouterias Im wondering what will work. I do have some canistel seedlings so I'll have to try an approach graft and see how it goes.
TFH is correct. The late William "Bill" Whitman of Bal Harbour (think North Miami Beach) had several fruiting trees outdoor, in the ground. His location between the Atlantic ocean and Biscayne Bay had a moderation effect on temperatures when compared to the mainland. It took 17 years to get the first fruit. Three trees grafted from Mr. Whitman's trees , further supported with nurse grafts, produced fruit somewhat quicker (guessing maybe 10 years?) in the Whitman Rare Fruit Pavillion at Fairchild Gardens, which had a 17 foot soil base of acidic sand. Ultimately 2 of the original trees, and numerous other rare fruit trees, were destroyed to make room for...and aroid garden. The current woman who has a fruiting tree has it growing in a large pot with potting soil. Her tree is growing outside, protected from the north winds, also took 17 years before it first fruited.
Bottom line....it can be fruited in South Florida if one is patient, and can provide a slightly acidic soil. As TFH also said, a greenhouse would be very helpful to lessen the time to first fruiting.
In contrast, I planted a 6-foot tall mangosteen in the ground, including amendments to lower the natural 8.2 pH soil of western Dade County, and it was dead within 6 months! 🙁
