The Tropical Fruit Forum

Compared to rainwater, faucet water is poison for the plants! Somebody with a good knowledge of physical sciences has told me "if you must use faucet water, leave it in the container for about 10 minutes before using it, so that the chlorine content has time to evaporate". When it rains i collect as much as i can, but i don't have the facilities for it that a good house can have; i mean, the means to collect from the roof and the space to set up a tank or barrel. The biggest container i use receives water from the neighbor's drain pipe, and when that is full, i transfuse to smaller containers and watering cans by means of an old hose from an old hand-shower (making use of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communicating_vessels). It is fun to watch the water moving through the hose to the smaller container.

supposely the younger leaves can be used for cooking...someone told me if you crush them..it can smell like chicken soup or something. (i tried...not really).

i have one that my parents planted i assume a long time ago....and that's the only reason i still have it around

i'm i socal and it does drop most of its leaves during the winter here though it's suppose to be deciduous.

you r the only one who finds that tree uninteresting. Still your opinion will be useful, as i have never seen that tree real and i m asking different people to form an opinion whether to buy or not. What do the leaves taste like to you? If it does not smell like chicken soup or something, what does it smell like?

Quote from: Giannhs on March 28, 2021, 11:41:47 AM

excuse me, is Pouteria hypoglauca really tropical? Could it survive snow for 2 days or so?

I have a seedling from 2017 in the ground.
It was 34F this year one night and 29F last year and was fine?
Last year my tortoise's waterbowl was frozen solid and this
year the ice was just forming. Those were somewhat brief
periods?

i see, it is quite hardy to cold, but snow is something different, snow causes burns on human skin, and "burns" to plants. Have you had any snow?

Hi, i m searching about Condalia microphylla (small trees), not much information in English on the internet, i would like to know how big the fruit is, how long time from sowing to fruit, what about the taste, and possible toxicity.

As far as I know, there's a self-pollinating Che variety. Unless you can get that one, you'll need a male tree too.

probably palmaverde in Holland have the self pollinating variety. DMKert in Hungary say it is theoretically self-fertile, but better plant a male one too.

Hi,
this site https://www.palmaverde.nl/en/cudrania-tricuspidata.html?id=229030139 says Cudrania tricuspidata "Gives fruit without pollination", but here https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Cudrania+tricuspidata they say "both male and female plants must be grown if seed is required". So i m a little confused. I m thinking to plant two female trees, will they fruit or not? Maybe they will fruit but with seedless fruit? (even better, if that is the case). What is your experience?

By the way, any advice on watering and exposure to sun? Does Che prefer sun or shade?

thank you!

Hi! i have never seen an akebia unless in photos, so can you please inform me about the fruit: how long will it take to produce fruit since i plant it? In other words, how old should the plant be to produce fruit? Do the fruit fall from the vine when ripe? I have read that the fruit "case" is bitter, but does it lose all bitterness if kept overnight in water? Or should we notch it before immersing in water to remove the bitterness? How would you describe the taste of the pulp and of the "casing" of the fruit? Are flowers or leaves eatable?
Any known danger to the vines like maybe harmed by direct sunlight? Harmed by shade? Harmed by watering during winter? How tolerant to wind? To occasional snow?
In the few recent years here temperature did not go below zero, but usually there is snow once every year.
Thank you!

When i was in Australia, i could find macadamia nuts with shells in some shops. If i remember well, they costed 22 AUD per kilo.
Now, i have never tried to germinate macadamia with shell or without, but when i soak nuts for eating i have seen that almonds do germinate, and the easiest to germinate is raw peanuts: i did not intend them to germinate, but they did when i soaked them to eat. By this logic, i believe macadamia without shell may germinate too, but they should be totally raw and whole. If they are e.g. dried, they will not germinate, like cacao seeds sold for food, they do not germinate although raw, because they are dehydrated to be sold.
Now, i you are serious for macadamia, i suggest do not try seeds. Seedlings are available from many sellers on the internet. So, order and buy seedlings.

Hi! i m preparing my new order from you, i went to https://app.airtm.com/ and saw various payment methods there, i suppose the best would be to "send", how much money is taken by the system, suppose i order for 40 euro, then airtm keeps for themselves how much?
Then, i m planning to buy two kinds of seeds from you and have one of them for free to recompense for the pacuri seeds that arrived dead due to delay. One will be the Annona montana. What kind of Annona montana can you currently send, that "* Graviola de montaņa, Colonia Delicia, 885 gr, (new)"? or the yellow fleshed from Misiones, or the white fleshed from Misiones?
I suggest, please put a number to each species that you sell, so we can refer easier to it. Thanks

Hi! this year i got a bean sprouter machine, it is very simple, just keeps temperature inside at 25 C and showers the seeds for a few seconds every one hour. I thought it would be ideal for germinating seeds that need no cold stratification. It does work well for mango seeds. However, i tried with small seeds like papaya, guava, and Jarilla caudata: put in a plastic cup with many holes for drainage but no soil, just naked seeds kept warm and humid in the machine. To my surprise, nothing of these has germinated! A real surprise, because papaya seeds from market fruit just thrown on the ground sprouted like weeds every springtime, guava germinated easily outdoors and all Jarilla seeds i sowed outdoors this past summer germinated - although no plant survived, the sly cats damaged the young shoots and the last one was destroyed because of heavy soil and strong winds of early winter while it was still too tender. Anyway, all those did germinate outdoors, but they are not germinating in the bean sprouter machine. Can somebody explain it?
After that, i put some seeds in clean potting soil and keep them moist in cut halves of plastic bottles at room temperature indoors, but those cut halves do not drain, they rely on evaporation for keeping not too wet. Even those in the potting soil have not germinated, about 5 days now. Some light of experience on the matter? thanks!

Don't water at all if in ground and it rains every 2 weeks. You really in marginal climate. You will need to plant 3 years old mango trees in ground, any young than that and they likely die. Established trees will survive cold better.

thank you for good advice! Of your 7 mango seeds, 4 have taken root in containers, a fifth one is now sprouting, the other two perhaps sprout later. I keep them inside home, but since a few days the central heating is not working and temperature goes down to 16 C indoors. I hope it will be fixed soon.

I have learnt the hard way (by losing promising and expensive plants) that we must not water in cold season. But now it is a changeable weather, during the day we had +18 C while during the night it reached +12 C, near the coast that is (on the hill nearby it reached 0 C a few days ago). So, how cold should it be to stop watering altogether? How much can we water when it is around +10 C? and about +5 C? Is there some practical rule about it?
I appreciate if you share your expertise.