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Messages - Victoria Ave

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51
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Restoring a 30+ year old avocado orchard
« on: October 11, 2022, 03:49:11 PM »
Pretty incredible! With all the potential irrigation issues I would recommend putting in a. Flow sensor with an automatic master valve shut off. And installing ball valves on every run for easy repairs and trouble shooting. Best of luck and thanks for showing us your new journey

52
Johnny,

Good the hear about the promise of Val-Carrie. I have a cocktail tree with Valencia pride, Carrie and sweet tart. Was thinking about putting Val-Carrie on because it would be fun to have a side by side comparison of the parents and their offspring.

I am surprised by how vigorous the Carrie scion is growing. It was dominating the tree (was grafted this year and over taking grafts from last year) so I bent the branch down for a few weeks using string and an anchor. It has now opened up the center and brought everything a bit more level canopy. Excited to see how these cocktail trees perform!

53
Looking great! What size were they when they went in?

Just gotta give mine more time!

54
Seanny, thanks for posting the photo and mentioning your method to do the air layer. I was thinking of doing something similar since my dad who was a bonsai instructor always used pots on the air layer branch for his bonsai. Good to hear it works, my previous years air layers (10) all had roots but after I moved them into small pots, 70% died in one year.

This year I will do the normal air layer, then once i see roots, I will try your pot method with soil, it sounds like a good idea. I have some large air layers going now (2-3" diameter, 6-8ft tall), so I will make sure to try your method. I plan to air layer maybe 20 branches so I can get as much of the branches off before I cut the tree down.

Here's my large Brester lychee tree photo from 2021.












Thanks.

What an absolute monster of a tree, I’ll keep an eye out if you sell any of those air layers

55
I suppose I’d need to befriend someone with a tree or trees. My only experience is super market versions, and they do not advertise the variety haha. Thank you for the input

56
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Fruiting Shade Tree - Worth it?
« on: September 17, 2022, 11:39:38 PM »
Consider a pecan tree spaced up to 20’ from your house on the south side. They grow into stately shad trees, provide delicious nuts, and are deciduous so in the winter they allow sun to warm your buns. Idk if you can grow persimmons there, but same attributes but in a smaller tree closer to the house

57
Is grafting lychee not common practice?

Not in the US. Air layering is very easy and grafting often has poor success rates because lychee cambium is only actively growing for a short period of time. That being said, it is possible. Certain varieties are traditionally grafted in China and I believe Lara Farms grafts a lot of their stock to Mauritius seedlings because that variety performs better in limestone soil.

Thanks for the info, I was thinking which other tropical I wanted (probably replace my strawberry guava) and lychee came to mind. I had not done any research but was planning to start seeds and figure it out later. Sounds like I better read up and buy an air layer. Any recommendations on the best bang for buck variety in terms of being hardy, and good quality?

58
Is grafting lychee not common practice?

59
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« on: September 16, 2022, 07:03:01 PM »
Sorry to hear about the skimpy crop, but hopefully those trees put on some good growth to get ready for the next year!

Woke up this morning to find my only colorful VP on the ground. I thought this was coming because I could feel the nose getting soft (probably should have picked it before it fell) it has real firm flesh it the nose is quite soft. It was a trip to feel as the skin changed color it also got so smooth! The smell from the outside is incredible and I think I will eat it tonight. The others on the tree are bigger than this, still green and rough skinned so I think just a random early ripening one




60
Shamus has got to be my least favorite personality in the tropical fruit YouTube game. I watched a lot of his videos thinking it would be more applicable to my climate than the Florida videos, but it turns out Chris and Har vids hold a lot more valuable info, based on lots of research and acknowledgement of opinions and tastes.

Shamus comes with things he states as absolute facts, not backing it up, contradictory info over the span of his vids. Just seeing Aravaipa reminded me of his vids where he always shows and brags about these trees growing in phoenix, but I never heard or saw a taste report.

I’m sure if it were noteworthy his vids would not be the only place I’ve heard of them. Sorry for coming off as a hater haha I just actually watched a few vids last night while icing my ankle and was reminded of why I tuned out

61
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« on: September 12, 2022, 09:16:33 PM »
When I dig up the large seedling I did not get the taproot and in fact only dug a pretty small rootball. It does not seem to have slowed the tree down any as it may be my most vigorous tree.

And yes my Valencia pride was a 25 gallon tree I bought from Florida before I knew any better and it had a few rough years. It has been starting to bounce back these past few years, but will never become the large tree I hoped it would

62
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« on: September 12, 2022, 10:02:52 AM »
Perfect! Thank you

63
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« on: September 11, 2022, 06:11:16 PM »
So the SoCal heatwave out here kept temps above 100 for two whole weeks. I gave one extra run of irrigation during that time and then I’ve been catching my greywater in a bucket and giving extra water. Now with the warm humid rain I am getting some nice flushes. The heat and sun also made my oldest Valencia Pride mangos on the tree develop some great colors.

I don’t want these to split on the tree, but I want them to be their best. I have been told to pick them once their shoulders fill out and then ripen off tree. I want to make sure I am interpreting that correctly, in the shown photo there is a distinct angle on the top mango. I am interpreting letting the shoulder fill out by that area swelling and rounding out so it is a smooth full curve instead of a flat angle.

Is this the correct way?




Anybody harvesting already?

64
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Mango: germinate seed in 90F oven
« on: September 08, 2022, 06:20:24 PM »
I will have to try, I have about 25 NDM seeds wrapped in paper towels in a rubber ware and it is slow going. I’ll try half in the oven with pilot light though it’s been getting damn near 90° in my house

65
Outside of growing tropicals as a hobby I am a landscape designer focusing on CA natives for my profession. If you do go the ornamental route put in some Cleveland sage, beautiful and requires a light watering once every two weeks. Manzanitas are great but can be tricky to grow, I have one that is making it through its first summer in my clay yard right now. It is a sentinel and is supposed to be more garden tolerant. Be careful with any of the native large shrubs, if they get happy they will get LARGE

66
Yeah I’m anticipating giving an extra irrigation run and my trees with a bit of shade pushing their current flushes!

My mango trees are the only thing that gets me happy with the heat

67
Well I was doing some work in the yard getting ready for this heat wave so I can share. I dug up a 10’ tall mango seedling from a friend that was moving a house and transplanted it. I dug up a root ball not even the size of a 15 gallon and transplanted it from pure sand to my pure clay yard. I was worried it wasn’t going to take but it lived through the winter. I did this in October, an ideal time to do this. I wouldn’t transplant anything right now.

That next summer I cut the plant all the way back to 3 feet tall and tried some bark grafts one took. This summer I grafted onto the new shoots and 4 took. It has a long way to go before becoming a successful fruiting tree, but it’s starting well and the tree was free. I don’t think I would try it on a $200-$300 dollar tree though




I’ve had that tree and seedlings under a pop up greenhouse through the winter and then I never took the fabric off through the summer. It seems the heat doesn’t bother the mango trees too much as long as the light is getting diffused, it has been getting over 100° regularly in there, but with it supposed to hit 111° here on Sunday I’m not wanting to risk it. So greenhouse fabric off and shade cloth up.

When we hit 116° A couple years back and I didn’t have shade cloth over my Valencia Pride it get absolutely roasted.

Speaking of which looks like my VP fruit are coming along well. Looking like late September I should be ready to harvest





68
your concern about the drought is an excellent argument in favor of growing from seedling in the ground. Trees grown from small size directly into the ground will develop a more complex and resilient root system than anything which is transplanted at size. I know how impatient we can be, and I've dropped some decent money on big trees for more immediate success, but it really seems seedlings are the way to go

69
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: What's your favorite fruiting shrub?
« on: August 26, 2022, 12:13:17 PM »
I’m a big fan of strawberry guava if we are talking about large shrubs.

The flavor and such is nice but it is such a beautiful looking plant that it fits in many landscapes and gardens

70
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Coffee
« on: August 26, 2022, 12:11:49 PM »
If nobody was there to stop me I would regularly eat the pulp off the coffee cherries at school. But I also eat the flesh off of our native holly leaf cherries. Both have very little flesh to seed but are enjoyable

71
Well now I’ve just got to get a rootstock to graft orange essence onto!

72
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: San Diego quarantine Mex fruit fly
« on: August 26, 2022, 01:47:34 AM »
Shit

73
I have sprayed with a new oil solution and will keep it up every 3 days. Hopefully that will end whatever is doing it

74
Hi all, what is causing this leaf curl on my new growth. I haven’t seen my trees do this in a while and usually I would think it is insects but I haven’t seen any on the new leaves (usually see evidence of ants)






75
Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / Re: WTB- mango scions for SoCal
« on: August 17, 2022, 04:08:41 PM »
Perfect, thanks!

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