The Tropical Fruit Forum

Hi Jack, yes, the yellow sapote from you tastes very good. I also got to try the Clytia fruits and I think that was even better. I have one more Clytia fruit (small one) I picked and will try it soon.

So far, the C. tetrameria #6 is growing slowly and I have not had any fruits on those grafts yet.

I do agree with you about the rootstock and using the C. edulis rootstock and grafting with C. tetrameria. I have some seedling rootstocks (from CSUF arboretum fruits) of both C. edulis and C. tetrameria. The large seedling tree I had growing in my son's yard was the McDill seedling, that tree grew over 20 ft and trunk grew large (5-8" diameter) in 7 years. On that tree, I grafted most of my 34 white sapote varieties except the C. tetrameria.

At my yard, I had the same seedlings from CSUF of the McDill and Yellow Sapote, but these were grafted earlier (3-4 yr old seedlings) with a combination of C. tetrameria and C. edulis varieties (24 total). All four of these trees have never grown taller than 10 feet, and the trunk size has stayed smaller (2", 2",3", & 4" diameter). So, it does make sense to graft them at an early age with the Casimiroa tetrameria to keep the tree smaller.

I agree with Jonah, this is the best place. I got all of my 34 varieties (now 26) from our forum members. Jonah got me started with many of my white sapotes, then got the rest from our senior members here.

Akin, yes, I did the same thing on KT26, it is a seedling of Vista White and the fruit tastes good. But I also grafted a few more of my excellent varieties on this tree so she will get 3 very good tasting fruits on this tree.

I agree with the quince rootstock for dwarfing as mentioned. I hear of many people using it since it grows slowly, trunk doesn't grow fast like a loquat seedling.

But, all my purchased quince seedling trees are still too small to graft after 1 year, and the one I used to graft my loquat is still not growing much so I went back to my old method for growing loquats in a pot.

Here's the trick I use which is very similar to what is described above by tropicaltoba.

"Andrew, I grew loquat seedlings for 6 years in a 20 gallon pot before it finally flowered. I bought 2 1 gallon cultivars and grew them in a 2 gallon pot for 1 year before they flowered (forced flowering in spring) and then potted them up to a 10 gallon."

If you want to grow loquats in pots and keep it in 10-15 gallon pot to fruit, here's what I will do. Just plant the tree or purchase one in a 5 gallon size pot, put the pot on ground so if the tree is vigorous and grows roots through the pot holes, they can escape and go into the ground which will let the tree grow good and strong, and should fruit quickly. For my seedling trees, I do this on any that I'm trying to taste the first fruit for evaluation to keep or top work it. Seedlings should fruit in 4-7yrs.

Once the tree fruits, or if you need to move your tree around, just take a shovel and cut off the roots outside of the pot, tree will be fine. If you want to permanently keep it in a pot, just up pot from 5 gallon to 15 gallon after you get fruits. I think I have most of my starter loquat trees this way and they all fruit just as quickly as the ones growing in-ground. Some of my best/top loquats (KT11-Lisa, KT18-Kim, KT13-Maddox, KT25-Keiko) are still growing in the 5 a gallon pots with escaped roots. These trees that are in pots are over 10 ft tall and doing fine since the roots are already in the ground. If I want to move it or give the mother tree away, I just cut off the roots outside of the pots at the length I want for new transplanting in someone's yard. These varieties mentioned above are in my top 10 best tasting.

I plan to give a loquat tree away for a Christmas present (KT26-Marilynn) so I will dig it out of the ground (still in pot) and take it over to the persons house to transplant next week. I can take a few photos of the size of the tree and how I trim the roots before transplanting if anyone is interested in this method.

Ok, good.

I would put them in larger pots, then less issues. Looks like mold, drying out, or too much moisture, can't tell until you pull it out a seedling from those small starter pots.

The total count was = 1290

Winner is  shmojojojo

Nice, it is an Etrog, a type of citron (citrus medica).

Ok, I found the photos of the 3 year old grafted Cocktail tree. The tree is a Lane Late navel orange, probably grafted on semi-dwf rootstock from the nursery. The Lane Late navel tree has been in ground for about 5 years and the heigh was about 4 ft and had good large fruits.  I grafted the Cocktail grapefruit scion wood so the tree can grow taller.

After I grafted it with Cocktail, the tree grew over 7 ft from the graft union, and this year it had so many large fruits, I had to thin half the fruits, then put 10 six-foot metal stakes and some eight-foot wooden stakes to hold the weight of the branches. Most of these branches were touching the ground from the weight of the fruits.

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I have already decided on which ones will be grafted. Those who answered in the time frame I asked for will be the first to order, no others are on my list.

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