The Tropical Fruit Forum

Sorry I was replying the the post before yours.  The weather here is hot then cold.  Its not really warm enough yet near the coast to grow watermelons.  The cool weather stunts them.

Those cheimoya seedlings were 2 years old.  I had did about 30 of them last year and had 4 or 5 failures that had to be redone this year.  So those cherimoya rootstocks were larger than I would like to be grafting on but I think they are all successfully top worked now.

I usually start the seedlings in pots and get them started then plant once they have 4 or 5 leaves or more. 

The bags are from Amazon.  They are made for keeping cookies and pastries from drying out.  I got another 100 pack of them already on hand for next years avocado grafts.  Then Im about done planting thank god. 

https://www.amazon.com/BagDream-Bakery-Window-100Pcs-4-5x2-36x9-6/dp/B0725CDSQD?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1

These are my avocado seedlings im about to stick these in the ground.  They never get shade or babying.  Ive seen people over babying their avocado trees.  The grafts will need bags for a couple months but thats the only time thry get any kind of protection.


These are my cheri oya seedlings.  I just toss a handful of seeds in a big pot then dump them out and bare root them and stick these either in small pots or in the ground.  They are very tough and dont mind this kind of rough treatment.

Brad full sun on the Annona's right after grafting?

Saw weather forecast is going to be over 100 in So. Cal

Yes they are very tough.  Its extremely hot and dry here but they are able to handle it.  I have a whole field of them that never got any special treatments.  I think you are wasting time with the bags on cherimoyas.  If the grafts are failing theres some other issue.  Like possibly the scion pushed from stored energy and graft was not yet fused.  Timing is important on the annonas.  Best to do it around march or early april.  Then the budwood is in the right state.  Doing them now is a little late and the budwood is more active than you really want.

I leave the tape on the grafts for several months.  Sometimes I will losen it but i like to leave the tape on the graft union for 2-3  months so it gets really well healed and doesnt dry up and make the graft fail. 

Ive been using buddy tape on the scions and flagging tape on the graft unions.  I like the flagging tape because it puts more pressure on the graft and also comes off really easy. 

No i usually start them in small pots to germinate them and get them going but you can direct sow about 1/2" deep and keep it wet. 

I usually play tricks on the plants and get seeds started earlier than they would otherwise start germinating by keeping the pots inside my garage or in a greenhouse.  But they should sprout now if you start them in the ground.  I have some volunteer plants in the ground that are already pretty big.  Mid April is whn I start them in pots and thats still pretty early because watermelons love heat, the hotter the better.  They dont really get going strong until July in southern CA. 

To get it growing the quickest you can move the pots outside during the day if its sunny then move them inside at night.  Or use a heat mat to speed it up. 

Red speckles also show on Feurte avo too.  It appears all avo flushing red leaves.  Brad?

Not all but almost all avos have red flush.

Ill look at my lamb tree and see if it has speckles later this weekend.

Where did the tree come from?  What nursery?

Last year I bought it cheap stacked it deep.

Good for a long time.

Smart man

I looked at my lamb tree.  The scion wood is too soft to use right now otherwise I would send some. 

Quote from: slopat on May 11, 2022, 02:49:59 PM

Definetely a win-win no compromise loss with chickens. My daughter's chickens work until they retire. About 80% of our kitchen green waste gets processed by the chickens. Then the "amended" pine shavings/straw goes into the compost pile with the other 20% and yard refuse.

Good fresh eggs and compost for the plants. The 10 year old retiree "managees" the young (8 month olds) flock for  us. Talk about a stern and vicious overload. I mix the chicken compost with a couple of yards from the calpoly dairy and along occasionally with fish emulsion, seems good enough for the for the year. I do have a couple of bags of the $11 deal and some other organic just in case.

Water is the greater concern this year. Those who have been conserving too well are getting squeegeed big time.

Would love to do the same but coyotes and wild cats would be at my door every day for them where I'm at...

ive been lucky and not lost any chickens.  Thry are programmed to go in the coop at night.  The coyotes and bobcats and racoons are out only at night here. 

In the video they mention the trees will drop leaves if they dont have enough water.  Its not super easy to follow but i think maybe she is saying they hold back the water to get them to defoliate at a particular time of year in order to cause new buds to form and flowers to make fruit off season.

She is talking about it around 47-49 minutes.  Maybe someone who understands spanish can watch that part and explain. 

Found the setting.  It was an auto translate setting needed to be enabled.  Yay!

It shows up only in spanish on mine.  Im using a tablet android and dont have a pc.

Haven't grown enough pineapples to know how often or how to avoid the runts, but got this topless version last year.  The inflorescence was already rather small in the number of flowers, so I didn't bother taking off the slips since I didn't think it was going to get bigger anyways.  I'm guessing the cold is just triggering the plant to flower early and I'm just not getting the plant big enough before that happens.



If the flower is cut off early enough, can the plant push another, hopefully better attempt the following year?

Its the variety.  Looks like a yellow sugarloaf.  Those ones make small fruit.  I got rid of mine because the fruit a so small and ants easily penetrate this variety.

The plant wont push another flower.