The Tropical Fruit Forum

I just wanted to comment that I received my package of superior lemon drop seeds and cuttings in EXCELLENT shape, and even gave me very nice extras! 

Seeds couldn't be more fresh! 

Thanks you so much Frank!

I've been eating peaches, nectarines, plums, and apricots since I was a kid and my uncle in the San Fernando Valley of L A (perfect growing conditions) had fruit trees in his backyard.  So I know the best, sweetest stone fruit is tree-ripened.  In general, commercial growers have to pick their fruit hard for storage, shipping, and eventual display.  Under optimal growing conditions and with the right varieties some of this fruit will have developed enough sugar to still taste good, but obviously not all.  Does this make sense?

Makes perfect sense John!   Thanks for sharing that.

Try one of the low chill peaches and see what happens. A chill hour is one hour below 45F
but in Florida the next day it might be 80F and we never get the required consistent chill hours for the
peaches and most years they set fruit. Most of the peaches are on the small size but the taste is the best.
The white fleshed peaches are my favorite like Florida Glo

One time I was in Spain (Madrid) and was given peaches from the garden of the place I was staying at.  I was VERY, VERY impressed!  I may be wrong, but since then I have the impression that store peaches are nothing compared to fresh from the tree, properly matured.

What do you think?

You might find this information and this chart useful.  A chill hour is any hour under 45 degrees.
https://ruckscitrusnursery.com/products/low-chill-peaches/#:~:text=PEACH%20CHART%20%20%20%20VARIETY%20%20,%20%2082%20%208%20more%20rows%20
And here is plum information.  https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/HS250  It includes a map of Florida that shows chill hours, but that may be changing due to climate change (?).

Thanks!  This is very interesting!

Hi,
I think this will be of interest to annona fans here.

I have a "Big Eyes" sugar apple I planted from seed.  I have it in a 10gal pot, and it is about 2 years old.  This year it produced its first fully developed flower, a single flower in the whole tree.  This was the only flower in the tree, the only annona flower in my backyard, and I am positive no one near me has any kind of annonas.   Last year it produced a tiny flower, but it didn't really develop into a "full" flower.

The thing is that this morning there was a small growing fruit were the flower was!  According to the Taiwanese farmer from whom I purchased the fruit a couple of years ago, this "Big Eyes" variety doesn't need hand pollination, but that I NEVER expected that one single flower would germinate itself.  What in the world!

Maybe it is just a fluke accident, but I thought it was very interesting.   Let´s see if it produces more flowers this year if they fruit.....

Edgard

According to USPS tracking, my package arrived last Tuesday morning.  In the REAL WORLD it arrived today..... 

At least it finally arrived....  Don't know however how good are the scions.... we'll see....

Goodness....

Thanks for responding.

I don't have any rootstock available, so it has to be air layering or cuttings.    I have been watching videos on youtube and there is (as always) a lot of information, so it's difficult to assess the validity of it.

I found this video which I found rather curious.   It is about cuttings.  I don't speak portoguese, but with the sub-titles and what little I could understand I could make sense of it.

(1) The white powder he applies to the cutting is IBA rooting hormone.
(2) The reason a women's stocking is used to cover the bottom part of the cutting is to mantain humidity.  He says that jaboticabas need a lot of water for rooting, and the stocking helps keep the cutting moist.  On a funny note, I "think" he advises to take the stocking from your wife without her knowing, otherwise she might chew you out over taking it (or something like that  )
(3) You need to water this every 2-3 days.  He says that jaboticabas need a lot of water for them to root.

Don't know if I missed anything else important. 

https://youtu.be/4xNOCBJ0JKY

Check it out.  Don't know if this is valid information or not, but it definitely is a very interesting take on this problem.

Nice yard and selection!  Hope this year you get a good crop of Annonas!
Edgard

Carlos, what do you use to measure the amount of light?

Hi Carlos,
I hadn't seen that these are sold on ebay.  Thanks!
Looks like something worthwhile trying.

@Eggo, thanks for sharing your annona adventures.  Very interesting!     

I wanted to ask something about breeding annona hybrids.

I imagine that the process is something like this:
(1) cross-polinization to produce the hybrid,
(2) harvest fruits to collect seeds of the new hybrid,
(3) plant the hybrid seeds,
(4) when the new hybrid plantings are of the appropiate size, graft them onto older wood to obtain  fruits faster and see what you've got…

My question is this:  What is the recommended age/size of the plantings where you can proceed to graft them?

I had been thinking for a while that since cherimoyas originated in the highlands of Peru, and that Peru has all kinds of weather regions (from very cold to very hot), that there might be varieties in Peru that have adapted to hot climates over the centuries.  So, for a while I had been searching in different places, asking friends I have in Peru, etc..., but couldn't find anything conclusive.  I also contacted a couple of agricultural research stations in Ecuador, but they didn't know.

Recently, however, I found the video I'm linking here.  This video is about pruning, yet goes into other details about cherimoyas.  It is presented by a lady called Maria Elena Rojas, who is the manager of an agricultural research station in Peru.  Around minute 25, while she is talking about choosing the right variety for your area, she explains that there ARE VARIETIES FOR THE JUNGLE.  The jungle she's referring to, is the Amazon jungle, and that is VERY HOT and VERY HUMID. 

Interestingly, she also mentions that these hot weather varieties tend to have leaves which are thinner than the cold weather varieties and have better medicinal properties.  From a picture she shows (at around 25:10), the leaves look like atemoya leaves, even though these are definitely cherimoya varieties.

YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKsODNG2nF8

Sorry that the video is in spanish only...

I forget if it was in this video, or another one I saw, that they explain that these hot-weather cherimoya varieties have not been used commercially as much because people prefer to grow soursop commercially in hot weather regions, and cherimoya in the highlands.  However, cherimoyas can be grown everywhere in Peru by choosing the correct variety.

I wrote an email to this lady asking to obtain seeds of these varieties but haven't received a response yet.  I am still pondering what other way I can get a hold of some seeds in the future. 

I thought that this would be interest to all annona lovers here....