The Tropical Fruit Forum

I was checking on my durians yesterday and was surprised to find one durian with quite a bit of damage. Any ideas on what could have done this? I checked the leaves for pests and nothing. Only one durian was badly effected and one other had very minor damage. PS. I believe this a Durio lowianus

Just a normal herbivore insect. Nothing to worry about. Just give it a bit more love ya know.
It would be amazing if it’s a lowianus! Well you will know when it flowers!!

Yeah Bali is great for durian, really good diversity. In big towns durian tend to be old sometimes so bali requires more due dilligence then Thailand for example.

Fruit nerd,
Fruit forest farm nursery have kutejensis and graveolens. No more then 25-35 for a seedling.
Dulcis you have to grow out from seeds from fruit you get of River, Dulcis have been the hardest for me to establish, idk what the problem is but they just don’t get vigorous. Idk what I am doing wrong with them, just more finky then zibethinus and all other durio sp. IMO.

Thats amazing, to hear about a flowering kura kura!

For everyones info, phytophra is an alge and not a fungi.
They reseblem fungi but are not.
That is why mulch helps since it encourages mychorizea which in turn will eat the cellulose membrane of phytophra palmiviora.
Using fungicide for phytophra is foolish. Most time plant issue is miss diagnosed as phytophra.

Phytophra isnt even an issue irl. More like alleopathic plant medicine marketing propaganda.
If you keep pigs away, mulch properly and make sure there is enough moisture in the soil there won’t be an issue with anything regarding durian, they are resllybl strong trees given proper care.
Pigs, drought and wind kill durian up here.
Not phytophra.
This advice if for common FNQ Soil types and climate.

Peace,
Feast on durian

C. Maxima does well here with a short dry season.
Rarely ever more then 3-4 weeks without any rain and between 4-6000mm per year.
But there is a monsoon season which gives the majority of the yearly rain.

They gonna grow a lot, so you just gotta keep em short for access to fruit.
Otherwise I don’t have anything to add. Not really that expereinced with citrus.

When is the normal cempedak season in AU FNQ?

I have just come across them sporadically over the the years so haven’t been able to form an idea around when main cempedak season is.

Cooktown to tully.

In May I had some in Woopen creek.

In March I have had some in whyanbeel.

Jack is usually sep-dec around mossman.
Cempejack I know of have been same season as jack.

Maybe it’s after durian season kinda??

But it’s a but strange this year because i’v got almost mature breadfruit now. Usually only the small samoan fruit of season for me.
And I’v had some strange off season durian flowers too.

No mature cempedak tree’s here yet so can’t say.

Cempedak is the Prince of fruit IMO! To ugly to be queen I guess :p

Peace!

A soil test will let you know what the soil needs.
By throwing this compound fertiliser you could potentially reduce yield long term.

And it might be an expensive way to keep trees going.

A soil test with proper agronomic guidance will give the best results IMO.
Cheapest and best long term impact.

There are no fertilisers that work specifically better for any type of trees. It all depends on the soil.
These retail products are just cleaver marketing with a high price tag.

If you wanna do foliar, it would be good to learn how to take leaf brix index measurements before and after because then you can see if what you put on had an impact on sugar production or not.

Peace

Some have more edible skin than others.
NDM has such thin skin it's hard to avoid eating it if eaten out of hand, but a normal common Bowen mango have very thick skin so it's a bit on the high side on the "bitterness" scale so I don't eat it on that variety.
It really depends on the variety.

Thanks for publishing that video Satya!
I watched the video and I have similar concerns as Jessie expresses in the video, tall durian and dabai.
I could definetly try this becuase it has high sucess rate and can be done in the field easy. No risk of losing a dabai tree, that's one of my biggest concern with grafting for me, loss of the tree when it is small. Dabai seeds are not easy to come by.
I have a sansapote in the field that is growing well but they aren't to vigorous here so no problem for me with them.
But dabai tree's do put out many shoots when cut so would be hard t graft it to itself, and even sometimes they die when tipped when they are young.
3 out out of 5 times onlt one new shoot comes up for dabai. But with many other tree's you get multiple, like durio for instance.

I can see that cutting of the apex auxin dominat leader would push growth in the remaining growing tips and then they grow away from each other creating a wide tree. But still one tip will try to dominate so have to cut that one even with this method I assume.

I wounder how much it will dwarf a dabi longterm, maybe the graft juncture would reduce sap flow. But it might take longer before the tree becomes mature since the sap flow might be restricted.
The Dabai still have to attain a certain girth I assume. And when I have observed tree it seams that the first branches appear above 3 m, no matter how much sun the tree gets, it seams to be a trait of the Canarium family. Similar with Canarioum ovatum.
I have found that girth is more reliable as a measure of maturity then age. But sometimes that is not the case.

I have one fiji longan pommetia pinnata (Matoa) seedling, that is fruiting at 10cm girth, but no other fiji longan is. So idk what's up with that. Even older other matoa at 20cm with good enviromental conditions arent' flowering and fruiting.
The 10cm girth one is healthy and puts forth good fruit, not fruiting because it's dying etc.

Quote from: Satya on July 29, 2023, 08:02:55 PM

Quote from: FLnative on July 29, 2023, 07:41:20 PM

In my IMHO letting them fruit young also is another way of naturally dwarfing trees.

thank you Frank, at about what age? I let a couple of my mango trees fruit out of a 15g pot, they had a very nice crop but didn't produce next 2 years, got bad mbbs and I had to hard prune them. But they were nursery plants, probably root bound. Let's see if they will get dwarfed, one of them is Super Julie - a very vigorous tree

Low nitrogen fertilizing along with letting a precocious tree hold fruit early can have a stunting effect. While it doesn't always work, and can also kill a tree, sometime it does have a stunting effect. One of my oldest trees was a Hatcher planted in the ground as a 3 gal. Here is a photo of it 10 years later.



After holding lots of fruit it would only have a few growth spurts before flowering again. It has since been top worked to a Orange Sherbet which, so far, is growing more than fruiting.

Flnative,
I don't have much experience with grafting so don't want to comment on that section of the post.
But I have obesved that our Ackee tree's that started to fruit early are smaller then the ones that started to flower and set fruit later.
Some species seams to not fruit unless the girth is above a certain width. our Marang (Artocarpus odoratissiumus) never fruit bellow 10cm girth. If they are wider then 10 and don't fruit I usually have to correct the environment, soil ammendments, soil moisture, sun exposure etc.
But then for a Artocarpus sericarpus Pedali none have fruited yet and they have a girth of over 30cm. Same age as some of our Marang, growth is faster for Pedalai but still no fruit on Pedalai. Mendi is similar to Pedalai.

Satya, thanks for sharing that Durian image from Jessies place, they look healthy.
I am trying to get my seedling durian to fruit early so that they stay smaller.

1 gallon of fertilizer is not really doing a whole lot for a large tree.

Brad,
Fish fertiliser has really good nitrogen efficiency because it’s mainly amino acids. They don’t leach and does not seams to form Nitrous gass as easy as synthetic ammonium or nitrate.
So you can use less.
But I wouldnt use fish emulsion since some componenets have been taken away from the fish, fat etc.
Better fish hydralysate because it’s mean’t to be whole fish dissolved in either anairobic bath or with potassium hydroxide.
Buying fish meal is cheaper then the liquid fish.

The efficiency is around the vicinity of 80-90%.
Sorry can’t reference it, heard it at a organic growers conferance.

What is the flavour of chama compared to hirsutus?

rareforestplant is good, easy to communicate with and cares. Recommended.

WTB Peach palm seeds
Bactris grisipae.

Can pay $50 for 10 seeds plus shipping.
Can also barter for seeds that I have. Please look at my barter posts.

Peace

This is what I have tried to convey to the “native re-veg fanatics” here. They only think native tree’s can save the world from the looming climate armagedon that Musk is making billons riding.

They (climate warriors) seam to also forget that Co2 sequestration is tied to leaf surface area so if the tree’s photoshyntesise it respirates C02. Not only native species do this…
Jackfruit, mango and some other species grow as vigourously as any natives. And establish super easy from direct seeding. Plus valuable yield… hmm seams like Gates are more concerned with tree cover then feed humans.

Planting fruit tree’s is againts the agenda of the government here, they seam to focus more on removing mango and coconuts and rarely plant any usefull plants on public land.
Maybe it’s in their interest that free food is removed so that GST (sales tax) can flow in!

Flobal temp is govern mostly buy solar and cosmic raidiation which affect cloud cover. Anyone can look into the work of the danish scientist Svenskmark.

Deforestation is a way way bigger issue then C02 or methane etc.

Big thumbs up to Mc donalds for converting the finest ecosystmem in The world to oil palm dystopia..
Could’ve just havested the native fruit for rare fruit export. But hey selling lamp oil is profitable.

Cassowaries love jackfruit and are spreading them all through the rainforest! Can’t beat the cassowary!
Sorry, cassowaries rant sometimes too..

Peace!

Where’s the nutrients???

Adding a bit of SRP (soft rock phosphate) or seabird guano and Lime or gypsum would help give the mix a bit higher EC (electric conductivity) 200-500 microcSiemens is good. And it won’t leach out fast like if you where to add non polymerised compound fertiliser. I add a bit of ozmocote (polymerised compound fert) slow release.
But starting to use poultry manure now since it’s even more slow releasing and easier for myco to use.
Adding a bit of healthy compost innoculates your mix, citrus form symbiotic relationship with microorg.

Vermicompost, it depends on what the worms ate!
But should be low, I use 100% wormcastings for starting some seeds.
No issues ever.

Perlite is useless and expensive as a potting mix additive IMO.
Better add a bit of zeolite or other clay that actually can hold on to some cations and anions.