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razarizvi

Sugar Apple harvest question

razarizvi
13 years ago

Hi Friends,

I live in Houston (zone 9) and got my two Sugar Apple plants in March of this year (2010). They're about 5-6 feet each. I plan to keep them in wine barrel containers (25" diameter) and bring the containers indoors (breakfast area) in the winter. I have a few questions and I'll greatly appreciate any advice.

1. I've been hand pollinating now for three weeks and many flowers have turned into fruit. How many fruits should I leave on the plant to ensure healthy fruit? Or should I pluck some of them out that are with in certain distance apart?

2. How do I make sure the roots in the container don't start growing in circles? Do I need to do something about the roots once in a while to maintain a healthy plant?

3. I'm noticing black bugs crawling up and down the plants, and also spiders? Should I be worried about them or are those natural? I figured the spiders would naturally take care of the others.

Two Sugar Apple plants in containers:

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Flower ready for pollination:

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Fruit in development:

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Thanks,

Raza

Comments (5)

  • Andrew Scott
    13 years ago

    Wow Raza great job! I would not be too worried about those roots. Every other year you can remove the pot and put in fresh soil. At that time, if you are worried about the roots, you could carefully unwind them and then repot the tree. I don't worry about the roots until I notice that the tree is rootbound. As far as your fruit questions go I really don't have any experience with the sugar apple. Normally a tree will drop fruits if it can't support the fruits. Your trees still look small so I wouldn't want to many fruit developing this year. Maybe one fruit per branch? Also you may want to find a way to stake up those linbs so once the fruits mature you don't end up with broken branches. Good job on the pollination! I have a grafted Fino cherimoya and another tree with sabor cherimoya and african pride atemoya grafted to it. I also have flower buds but I know the Fino de Jete is still small so I don't expect any fruit to grow on that one but I am hoping the other tree will hold one of each fruits. What kind of sugar apples are they? Was this your first experience with fertilizing the flowers? As far as the black bugs go, I would try and get a picture so everyone can see what your dealing with but your right about the spiders. I encourage them to spin webs on all my plants and trees.
    Andrew

  • ohiojay
    13 years ago

    Ditto on the good job. My experience is that the plants will continue to push flowers and develop fruit as long as you continue to pollinate. The problem is too many will begin to develop and that can lead to nearly all of them dropping prematurely.

    IMO, I would only allow not more than 8 develop on the larger plant and maybe 4-5 on the smaller. This will ensure that these fruit will obtain good size and actually stay on the tree full term.

    My larger tree had 98 developing fruit last year. Like an idiot, I left them alone figuring the tree would keep what it wanted. I ended up with maybe 6.

    After you harvest, my advice would be to cut the plants back considerably. I would strive for a more compact plant rather than one getting too tall.

    When you confirm that the plants are getting a bit root bound, you can dig out sections of old soil. You will be root pruning at the same time. Then replace that section with new soil. This beats the he!! out of trying to remove the plant from that wine barrel. I also think that getting it out clean from that wooden container would be a pain in the butt...if not impossible.

    Keep up the good work. The plants look great. Thanks for posting the pics.

  • dghays
    13 years ago

    I would be even more conservative with the amount of fruit. I'm always very conservative with new plants with fruit. I'd only leave a couple per tree this year.

    Gary

  • razarizvi
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    Thanks y'all for the detailed feedback. I have to admit though I was a bit disappointed that only about a dozen fruit should remain on the plants. I already made a bit too many commitments to excited coworkers and relatives :-(

    This quote below may not apply to potted plants but it did get my hopes high. The seller told me my plants were both 5 years old.
    http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/sugar_apple.html
    "Seedlings 5 years old may yield 50 fruits per tree in late summer and fall. Older trees rarely exceed 100 fruits per tree unless hand-pollinated."

    This is my first time hand pollinating. It wasn't hard at all ..just a few minutes in the morning before work. I've been averaging 3-4 flowers daily for the last 3 weeks.

    I don't know the variety of the Sugar Apple. Would like to know if there is a way to find out though.

    Thanks again.

  • charleslou23
    13 years ago

    picked up one of these myself recently... showing some flowers already but wondering if they'll still fruit without hand pollinating?

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