i really want to obtain this cultivar, is Carambola hard to graft? i would guess they are not. they are pretty damn hardy and seem to flower as a direct result of abuse.

i have one that i pretty much tortured. let it grow in the ground for a year until it got 6 foot before deciding it was in mango territory. i dug it up and put it in a container where it lost all its leaves and survived the winter. its now budding like crazy in a neighbors yard.

its a Zill high performance, flowered but no fruit. not sure the cultivar, if its Arkin it may just get topped if i can get a different graft going.

Harry

Jerry, from Virginia, who we haven't heard from in a while, and I repeatedly tried grafting the B17 to our plants with zero success. On the flip side, I did successfully wedge graft a scion sent from Thailand during a spring and successfully bud grafted a Bell during summer...all other grafts during this period were wedge type grafts and all failed.

I'm no expert grafter by any stretch of the imagination, but I've done a lot and have had many successes. But the darn B17 just did not want to graft...and I tried every possible approach with them.

But after tasting my Bell fruit...I'm quite satisfied with the turn out.

B17 is supposed to have the highest Brix level of all Carambola, its also called "crystal honey"

according to this source which tested its Brix level:
http://www.nt.gov.au/d/Content/File/p/Fruit/637.pdf
------------------------------------------------------
The best cultivars introduced from Malaysia are:
(a) B2 (long style), elongated, narrow fruit, ripening yellowish-white. Its flesh is fine textured
and sweet with a brix of 8-9%.
(b) B 17 (short style) or Crystal honey carambola is crispy, juicy, extremely sweet with a brix of
15-18%. The fruit is usually elongated with whitish sugar spots and ripens to a golden
yellow colour.
(c) B 17 has good potential in Asian and Middle East countries because of its sweetness but B
10 is the most widely accepted cultivar world wide. B 10 has broad, large, 12-14 cm, fruit
which ripens yellow to yellow orange with smooth fine textured, juicy, sweet (brix 10-12% )
flesh.
Some attributes of a good cultivar are:
(a) sweet and less tart with brix of >11% and low oxalic acid content,
(b) good colour yellow to golden yellow,
(c) Crisp, juicy, fine-textured not fibrous,
(d) strong, broad ribs to withstand bruising,
(e) good post harvest shelf life,
(f) good yielder >40-60 mt/ha/year and
(g) can withstand cold temperatures.
------------------------------------------------------------

heres a taste comparison conducted by Dr. Jonathan Crane in 1998:
http://www.fshs.org/Proceedings/Password Protected/1998 Vol. 111 /299-302 CRANE.pdf

(amazing how 45% of tasters found Arkin insipid yet ten years later its still a major cultivar)

other sites list Kary, Sri and Fwang tung the best cultivars with excellent flavor and b 17 as just "good"

Well, this does go back about 15 years, so my memory might be faulty. Perhaps what I tasted was mislabeled or was not a representative fruit.....but yes, in my memory, I agree with the last sentence of your post. But, if you find some B-17s floating around, I would certainly give them another try.

Harry

have you ever tasted Golden Star? or a sour carambola? i really like sour fruit and one that sweetens when ripe sounds appealing.

Harry

-Ethan

Harry