All I can say is wow, I am envious. Personally I would vote for 10 fruits.

I can't give you a number either, but I would say no more than 10. The reason is that young tree will exhaust it's energy stores maturing the fruit which will cut down on leaf growth and fruiting next year. It is not uncommon for young fruit trees to fruit every other year because of that reason.

Let us know how well the fruit tastes. I also have a 5 foot sapodilla tree, but it hasn't flowered yet. I don't know my variety.

Christine

Well...seeing that you've been quite silent for some time now and I have only ONE fruit on my sapodilla...my vote is that you should only leave ONE!!! What the hell man?

Seriously...great job. Won't the plant drop what it cannot support? I've seen smaller plants with nearly as many fruit.

Tell you what Jay, I'll send you the ones I thin off and you can tie them to your tree so it won't look so barren. :-)

Since I've got fruit on ten branches, the best thing would be to thin each cluster to one fruit. I just hate to cut any more off than needed especially when some Sapodillas take 10 months to ripen. Maybe I'll leave two in one cluster and see how they size up.

One question would be how close is your tree to as big as you want it to be? If close, you don't have to worry about fruit stunting its vegetative growth. My Makok is tiny but wants to prolifically produce also. My Alano has fruit in all kinds of various stages, its close to 9' tall. I'm allowing none for two more years on the Makok. I would say 5 if you want it to grow fast still, 10 if your close to satisfied. Hope you enjoy some fruit!

Jay, some fruit trees can actually produce so many fruit that they die. Of course, most do what you're saying.

Gary

I'll meet the tree halfway....start producing or be dug up!

The deed is done! I settled on 8 as being a compromise between 5 and 10. Since the tree will probably suffer some to my mistakes in culture, best to err on the safe side. I see why they say to be quick about budding them as the latex flowed as soon as I snipped it.

I can let it get 8 to 9 feet tall in my greenhouse. Also I have a Alano I got at the same time but it didn't grow much or bloom this past summer. It now has new growth breaking as well. I think this year I will need to increase the fertilizer. I used a medium rate of osmocote in the mix at potting time then supplemented liquid as the osmocote depleted at the end of summer.

Anyone have suggestions on how aggressive to be on fertilizing Saps in containers? I'm not one to use organics. Osmocote and Peter's fertilizers have been my mainstays for profit and pleasure over the last 30 years.

I'm using pine bark, granite grit, turface and diatomite. Pretty much Al's mix except for the diatomite. Also wondering about adding addtional lime beyond the standard rate of dolomitic lime when I mixed it up.

Wow, Jerry, beautiful tree, good luck whatever you go with!

An Alano is a fairly slow grower, I wouldn't push it too much. My Alano is outgrowing my Makok because I had the Makok in a poor spot until I moved it a year or two ago.

Jerry- great job! I am so jealous! I love sapodillas.
My tree makes flowers, but has yet to produce a fruit.
I think I will print out the picture of your tree and show it to mine, maybe it will stimulate something!

Could you tell me where you got the tree from. I would love to grow one here in Dallas/Ft Worth area.