Those are beauties. Don't take this as fact - I could easily be wrong - but the one with the lighter green leaves looks like mamey sapote. The other one looks very characteristic of green sapote with the greener, more wavy leaves, and green / hairy flushes. There's only a couple of nurseries here in South Florida I know of that propagate the green sapote, and neither uses side veneer. Where did you get it?

The green sapote, when grafted onto mamey, has a slight incompatibility where the green sapote gets a bit thicker than the mamey... kind of a reverse elephant's foot :-). So, I suppose that's one way to tell if it's mamey or not - in a year or so you'll start to see the scion getting thicker than the stock.

Jeff

Harry, thank you for the information. IâÂÂve visited Fairchild Botanical gardens but yet to visit Kampong. IâÂÂm making plans to be back in the area next July so Kampong will be on the agenda. IâÂÂm curious if you might have an opinion on what Jeff has suggested. Do I have two green sapotes cultivators or a mamey and a green sapote?

Jeff, youâÂÂve planted a seed of doubt. The only mamey sapote tree that I have seen up close has been a large 2O-25 ft high specimen. I always thought the leaves looked more rounded at the tips almost like a tear drop. BTW the plant was purchased from Plantogram as a green sapote specimen. Since IâÂÂm in Southern California I would rather grow green sapote than mamey for various reasons.

Yes, that's correct. The mamey has more of a teardrop shape (especially the 'pace'). But Depending on the size/health of the plant it can also look a bit more pointy. I'll take a picture of a 'pantin' I have in a 3g pot that looks just like that first picture. Again, I could totally be wrong, but comparing yours to the green/mamey sapote trees I'd say it's a mamey. My wife who's from Central America also agrees. Maybe email them and ask? Even the best of nurseries mislabel stuff on occassion unfortunately :-(.

At any rate that other one is definately a green sap. Green sapotes are very delicious.

Jeff

Hi, both are Green Sapotes.

Mamey Sapote leaves are considerably larger, longer and they appear more spread out.

Another characteristic of the Mamey Sapote leaf is that it's wider near the tips (compare that with your Green Sapote leaf where it's wider in the middle).

I have a Green (bought it from Pine Island nursery in Miami about 3 years ago). The rootstock they grafted it on was too large, at least twice as thick as the scion, a rather ugly graft. It has grown considerably slow, but picking up speed lately. Cost me $50 bucks and it was only about 8 inches tall..

I should have asked if they grafted it on Mamey or Green rootstock.

Mamey seedlings grow fast, and become larger trees, probably being a better rootstock for Tropical climates but in the Sub-Tropics, I suppose it's better grafted on its own Green Sapote rootstock for better cold tolerance.

I'd love to get some Green Sapote seeds or seedlings and have a back-up tree.

Smart fruit tree choice by the way. Congrats!

-Mario/Orlando Fl

Mario - For in-ground trees your analysis is 100% correct. But, for small potted trees, it's very hard to tell. I have a mamey sapote in a 3G pot that I grafted myself (so I'm sure it's mamey) and it looks identical to the one in the pic. Once the trees get bigger, then leaves of the mamey start to get larger and it's easier to tell. But as a small potted specimen, it can go either way. Anyway, if I can figure out how to post a picture here, I'll snap a shot later on today and post it.

Pine Island typically buys their sapotes from Lara's who uses mamey sapote rootstock for their green sap's. Whitman has an excellent article on the green sapote including observations on grafting onto mamey rootstock at the below link.

Here is a link that might be useful: FSHS green sapote

So, hopefully I'm wrong, but here are my observations on the green sapotes and mamey sapotes that I have in my yard. Whether there are exceptions to these rules, I honestly don't know:

• Green sapote has a hairy underside to the leaves

• Green sapote has wavy leaves

• Green sapote 'tends' to have dark green leaves (when not suffering from micro-nutrient deficiency of course). Though the 'pace' cultivar tends to have darker green leaves than the others.

• Mamey has smooth underside of leaves

• Mamey will not usually have wavy leaves

Here is a shot of a 'pantin' mamey in a 3G pot. As you can see, most of the leaves have pointy tips. The newer leaves are starting to display more of the characteristic teardrop shape is it gets older. {{gwi:2103999}}From Sapotes

Here's a shot of a green sapote seedling with larger than usual leaves, probably as a result of growing in part shade. {{gwi:2104000}}From Sapotes

I bought my green sapote last spring at Larias nursery in Miami. The tree when I got it was about a foot high and had the same dark rich green leaves like one of your trees pictured has. Over the last few months all the leaves that have come in on new growth are a lighter bright green and smaller sized. As that has happened the large dark leaves have slowly been dropping off so as of a few days ago my tree only has the smaller leaves on it. My guess is the dark larger leaves are from the mature scion tree. Then as they drop they are replaced by light smaller leaves. All of the growth is well above the graft mark. On the other hand...the guy at Larias did not speak english and my Spanish is pretty bad, hope I did get a "sapote verde." Here's what mine looks like today.

swrancher - yep that's definitely a green sapote alright :-). The leaves get more yellow when in the ground. The one I have in the ground is the same way. In pots they are dark green because they don't have nutritional deficiency.

Jeff

A couple of questions:
What nutritional deficiency are you referring to Jeff? Is there a specific element that we need to pay attention to? IâÂÂm using fish emulsion on it in small concentrations.

Swrancher, beautiful plant. Did you do anything specific to make it branch? Also, does your plants growth come in bunches (multiple leafs) opening on the center stem at the same time, or does it open one leaf at a time?

SOCALMANGO - I have not done anything to make my tree branch, its just doing its own thing started branching a month or two after being planted in the ground. The leaves on mine seem to come in groups, not individually.

The tree has doubled in size since being planted in the spring and seems healthy. I dont think it has a nutritional deficiency because I feed it with a minor element root soak that contains chelated magnesium, iron, potassium, phospherous, etc...none of my other trees getting the same mix have problems. hopefully it does need the extra minerals, would be nice to have the dark colored leaves. I just gave it another root soak this morning to see if thats the cause.

swrancher when you dig deep in your yard, do you find chunks of limestone, like this?

i run into this problem and it leads to nutritional deficiencies in some trees.

Here is a link that might be useful: PREPARATION OF OOLITIC LIMESTONE SOIL FOR AGRICULTURAL USE

Jeff and MangoKush - Most of my yard is more a black muck type of soil with not many rocks. With that said the highest part of the yard is built up with fill that contains a lot of rocks including limestone. The green sapote tree is planted at the edge of that area so it may have some hidden limestone under it thats draining the minerals, we'll see I just gave it some chelated minerals this morning...

Jeff and MangoKush - Most of my yard is more a black muck type of soil with not many rocks. With that said the highest part of the yard is built up with fill that contains a lot of broken rocks including some limestone. The green sapote tree is planted on the edge of that area so it may have some hidden limestone underneath it thats draining minerals, we'll see I just gave it some chelated minerals this morning...

I have some GS seedlings which look very similar to my mameys (seedlings and a grafted Pantin) in foliar shape and color. The GS seeds were from Hawaii (fruitlovers.com).

I think I will need lot's of patience to see my seedlings fruit...

Felipe

As for the nutritional deficiency, some of the trees in my yard suffer from iron deficiency due to the limestone rubble that's just beneath our 'topsoil'. In socal you shouldn't have that issue. Aside from being a bit too clayey and lacking a tad in organic material, the topsoil I had in santa paula (ventura county) was pretty darn nice.

The green sap's I have in pots looks fantastic - dark green. I just give them good old osmocote.

PS - swrancher - you're green sap looks beautiful. I like the structure its forming.

my soil is slightly brownish nematode riddled sand with boulders of limestone strewn about.

Mango Kush, I am glad you posted this. I killed 5 Avocado trees before I got the one I now have to survive, only because I dug the deepest, widest hole I could with pickaxe and shovel. And even now after 6 years in the ground it's only about 6 feet tall, which I don't really mind.
The advice I kept getting from people was, don't amend the soil too much because the root system in the amended soil would be too weak to grow into the native soil. What kept happening was the trees would after a very short while hit solid rock and go into a decline. The only trees that would thrive in the soil I have were mangos. That, and shortage of space is why I have resorted to growing everything in pots. Trying to dig huge holes in this horrible rocky soil is just too hard.

SWrancher how much was your G.Sapote at Laras?

From your description it seems to have grown much faster than the one I bought at Pine Island. Mine looks very similar to yours but I cut the top bud to encourage branching, was growing too upright.

Thanks for that info Jeffhagen, I guess that means my rootstock is Mamey. The Green Sapote grows at considerable elevations elevations so it makes sense the Green should have better cold tolerance than the Mamey.

Interestingly the article says they experienced the opposite with small plants, but possibility exists the Green sapote rootstock doesn't quite get used to South Florida's higher heat and humidity as well, and tree suffers more with violent temp changes.

Maybe Green rootstock is better suited for CA and Mamey rootstock for FL?

The article might be somewhat outdated, for example they say it fruits in the winter here in FL, etc.

By the way, with regards to small Mamey plants, could anyone provide a picture of leaves, those of you who say your Green and Mamey leaves look almost the same?

I don't remember leaf size of grafted Mamey plants, but a friend has a seedling with leaves that are huge, more than a foot long. Green Sapote leaves tend to average half that, at best. There's also a possibility that GS varieties with leaves hard to tell apart from Mamey, resulted from hybridization between the two.

The Green Sapote tree also supposedly has a more compact form, but I've never seen a large plant/tree.

The smaller Mango leaves on a plant I have actually look very similar to my Green Sapote side by side. Yet leaves of the related Sapodilla, are totally different at first glance.

thetropicaldude - I'm pretty sure the tree cost $30.00, they also had some bigger ones there that were $80.00.

GS 1:

{{gwi:2104004}}

GS 2:

{{gwi:2104005}}

Mamey Pantin:

{{gwi:2104006}}

Hello pikorazi,

I saw the Pouteria Sapota in your page. I was wondering if you took those pictures? I never been to Tenerife but my family in Barcelona tells me the climate is similar to Orange County Ca. where I live. Can you tell me if the Mamey is a seedling or a particular cultivar? I discovered a 10 meters seedling that is fruiting in Orange County (Santa Ana)and I'm experimenting with two grafted maganha. If you have any information about the Mamey i.e. age, height, cultivar I would appreciate it. If you want to see pics of my Mamey Sapotes and the seedlings in Santa Ana you could look in the Cloudforest archives under Mamey Sapote.

Best Regards
Joe

Hi Joe,

yes, I took those pictures. I'm not from Tenerife, I'm from Gran Canaria, but living in Germany. I'm only on the island on vacations. My parents own land, where I plant a few exotics every time I'm there.

The Canary Islands have a lot of micro-climates. In the north part of Tenerife/Gran Canaria the climate is really sub-tropical: never too hot, never too cold, and quite humid. Frost is unknown to us. In those conditions mamey produces very well! In fact, there are a few mamey plantations in north Tenerife, producing tons of fruit. Mainly the Pantin cultivar.

I'm from south Gran Canaria, where the biggest challenge is lack of rain and hot winds form north Africa (Sahara dessert). Under those conditions, the mamey grows well, but often looses fruit and leaves in summer when hot winds form africa arrive. Then it gets very hot and humidity very low!

As I wrote above the pictures I posted, the first and second plants are green sapote seedlings (seed from Hawaii). The third one is a mamey grafted with Pantin. I'm not sure how hold this mamey was, maybe 1,5 or 2 years old.. by the way, it was just planted when I took the pictures.

The sapotaceas I'm urrently growing: Lucuma, canistel, green sapote and mamey. I will probably fly back in december. If do it, I will make pictures and report you how they are doing ;-)

I will check for your mamey pictures!

Best regards,

Felipe

Hi Felipe,

Delighted to make your acquaintance. I was looking at the Mamey that was full of flowers and fruits in your page. It did not look like a large tree. I was wondering how long did it take to fruit and the height? Tenerife is a bit different than Socal. We have a lot of micro-climates in this zone but our humidity is very low. Our winters are very mild, temperatures range from the low 70's in the daytime and the high 40's low 50's at night. I would post the pictures here but I'm embarrass to say that I don't know how to do it. I tried Lucuma and Canistel here and I'm not really too fond of them. I have several nisperos two seedlings from Yucatan and a grafted Hasya from Pine Island. Your respond was greatly appreciated.

Joe

It's funny that it's not mentioned much, but the 'pace' cultivar of mamey is perhaps the best one out there. They are super precocious (flowering in 3G pots), cold tolerant (for a mamey), bears in the off season (march to april), and is as good or better in flavor than the pantin. What more can you ask for in a mamey!

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/mg331

Jeff

Joe,

the mamey with flowers is in a greenhouse (from a nursery) in Tenerife. It was about 10 ft and I think about 8 years old. To my it was really amazing, because non-grafted mameys are really big, at least the ones I've seen. So this one was dwarf, but fruiting like a champion. By the way, the fruit, at least the Pantin cultivar, needs about 14 month to rippen and it does have one season, but a few.

I've tried many mameys, mainly from Mexico, but I don't have a clue if they were from selected cultivars. Pantin tastes very good and is very sweet, but it's not the best I've tasted. I would love to try the Pace ;-)

Felipe

Jeff,
I read your post above about Mamey flowering in a 3G container. How about fruiting one in a container?
Is it even possible and if so what size container would you recommend? Even here in socal down in the San Diego area with our temperate climate IâÂÂve yet to see a fruting Mamey.

socal ,
Certain mamey sapote cultivars do exhibit the trait of early development. You can see a list of them on page http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/mg331 , look for the ones labeled yes under the Precocity column. Not sure on the recommended container size for fruiting mamey sapote trees. I currently have 2 mamey sapote trees (1 x unknown cultivar, 1 x Pantin aka Key West) that are fruiting, both planted in ground and 1 x Pantin that is in a 4 gallon. The Pantin is currently around 2 1/2 feet tall and already produces flowers; although, I remove them as I do not want the tree to fruit just yet.

I'm not sure how well they'd do in a container. But, it's definitely worth a shot!

Jeff

Sorry , I tried to post earlier that the cultivar that i have in the 4 gallon is a Pace , not Pantin.
You can get them to fruit in containers. Excalibur (http://www.excaliburfruittrees.com/) has large fruiting mamey trees in containers. You could give them a call as see what size they recommend :)

hello socalmango,

check out a fruiting Mamey Sapote in Santa Ana, Ca.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af304/culov/IMG_1105.jpg?t=1287621395

Felipe,

Most of the Mamey's that I tried have been from Miami Fl. Mostly seedlings and Patins. Have tried store bought one in California from Dominican Republic and also on my trips to Merida Mexico. The picture in your page was amazing! I have never seen a Mamey that size flowering so profusely . Now, I have seen them fruit in a 24" box in Florida but the tree was a good 3 meters.

Joe

Very interesting Joe,

Several questions. Do you have a picture that shows the overall structure of the tree? The tree appears to be quite mature. How many fruits has it set? Do you know the age of the tree? Is this a grafted or seedling tree?

How has this tree been protected from those strong Santa Anna winds up there? Usually LA County takes the brunt of those winds. What about frost? It must have seen frost at some point up there. Do you know how itâÂÂs been protected?

WhatâÂÂs your opinion on my first post? Do I have a two Green Sapotes or is one a Mamey?

I'll try to post it socalmango. The tree is 18 years old it has two fruits but it's been flowering profusely for two years. Santa Ana's winters are very mild never been below zero in thirty years I worked there. Many people suggested Green sapote rather than Mamy Sapote because it's hardier but after discovering three mature Mamey Sapotes trees in Santa Ana I was skeptical.

here it is socalmango

Beautiful tree! :-)

Don't you think it would be a good idea to prune the top? Else I think it will get very tall and harvesting a bit difficult..

Wowâ¦thatâÂÂs a very nice tree Joe. Looks very healthy. IâÂÂve always thought they are very attractive evergreen trees. IâÂÂd love to see it in person.

IâÂÂm curious on how the owner has protected this tree all these years. There must be some sort of wind break on the property.
Do you know if the tree ever experience a frost? We do get a light frost a couple of times a year here in SoCal. Its light but you will get a little ice build up on your windshield from time to time.

BTW The mango tree next to it is no slouch

Actually, Santa Ana and La Habra have better micro-climate than San Diego. I've lived in Oceanside, Vista, Carlsbad for 4 year and I can tell you first hand that it's warmer in North Orange County, days and nights. Winters are very mild low 70's during the days high 40's low 50's at nights. For example, last year the low in La Habra was 36 and that was for two hours. I've lived in La Habra for 25 years and worked in Santa Ana for over 30. Yes,ice builds up on our windshield once in a while but it never drops below 32. Both cities are Zone 10b USDA/23 Sunset. The Santa Anas winds blow pretty good in the city but nothing compare to Anaheim Hills or Riverside area east of the 91 freeway. In fact, Temecula, Fallbrook area has a lot more wind issues than Santa Ana or La Habra. The Mamey Sapote in the pictures is in a protect area in the backyard 5 feet away from the house. Drop me an email if you want to visit the garden in Nov. I have some days open in early Nov. Here are some pics of other interesting trees my friend has in his garden:
Nispero (chico) blooming

Mamoncillo (Genip)

Anon ( Sugar Apple)Royal palm (Cuban palm) in the background

I'm late to the party but the very first picture in the post looks like my mamey (see grown). With that said, I have no experience with GS.

Beautiful Spanish lime/ Mamoncillo. IâÂÂve never had the good fortune to taste it but IâÂÂve been told itâÂÂs a nice blend of sweet/sour flavor. IâÂÂm also growing Nispero/sapodilla (Alano variety) although the tree is still several years from producing. Great pictures Joe. Looks like the stuff IâÂÂm interested in growing, and everything looks so healthy. Definitely would like to get some growing advice from you guys.

If you have some time I would like to take you up on your offer. Maybe on my way back IâÂÂll make a stop at Mimosa and see what interesting stuff they might have.

Speaking of sapodilla, I'm surprised the makok isn't mentioned more. It's super fruiter and a slow grower. They'll start loading up with fruit within a year of being grafted and in a 1g pot. I have one that's 2 feet tall and already has 5 or 6 fruit on it. I have an older one in the ground that's about 12 feet tall and is absolutely loaded with fruit. PIN rates the makok as having mediocre production, but it's not the first time I've seen a questionable rating there... Sure seems like it would be a good one for the folks growing sapodilla in pots.

The makok is also extraordinarily sweet. It's like biting into a piece of panela!

From FSHS Makok article:
"Productive trees can be maintained in 37.5 liter or greater containers for many years, and perhaps indefinitely."

(For the metric-challenged, that's a 10 gallon container.)

I bought a GS from Lara's 3 1/2years ago;
It has been a slow grower standing close to 6' now and with a stem diameter of about 4 inches (It more than doubled); it has been taken care of properly; I planted it in West Broward county in 2007.
It has flowered profusely 2 times but did not set any fruit; I estimate the age of the tree at around 6 years.
The guy from Lara farms said that I should subject the tree to some drought in order to stimulate fruiting;
What do you think?

So Precocity means early fruit production? My grafted pace has five small branches and is flowering for the first time. The tree itself is a bit more than 4 ft tall and I transplanted it into a 15 gallon nursery pot five months ago. The trunk and branches are pretty thick and are about to produce new leaves. The tallest branch is beginning to produce a secondary branch towards the tip.

Yes, indeed. The 'pace' reportedly begins fruiting very young. However, mamey sapotes usually take well over a year to grow on the tree. So, the flowers you see now on the 'pace' won't be ready for harvest until march or april of 2012 (that is if you're lucky and it doesn't abort the fruit :-).

The 'pantin' is even longer of a wait. I think you can reasonably expect about 6-7 years from 3g size to first harvest. In my (admittedly limited) experience, it seems to take about 3 to 4 years to begin flowering (15 to 25g size) then another year before the flowers actually begin to produce fruit. Finally, it takes another 16-18 months for the fruit to grow :-).

Jeff

Wow. I'm glad I got a pace. Thanks for the helpful info Jeff. Besides the variety, I guess it depends how well you take care of it and how fast it grows. Supposedly, a mamey sapote seedling can take 7-10 years to develop fruit. I also have a two year old pantin seedling, which is a bit more than five feet tall. Still is a single trunk and looks kinda like a palm with big leaves. Don't know when it can start branching. I was thinking about grafting the seedling next spring when the pace has plenty of smaller branches. But I've leave it alone since I like how a mamey sapote tree looks like as a tropical landscape tree. I'll get fruit from the grafted one anyways. :)

Alexi

precocious means a tree that likes to fruit early and reliably.

some fruit trees like dwarf ambarella fruit their first year in almost any environment, in fact its hard to find one without fruit; while some lychee specimens may hardly ever fruit.

Rosigold is considered a precocious mango, usually the first to fruit by far and does so reliably where as some cultivars here are stubborn, give small crops or skip years that arent perfect.

Precocity usually refers to length of time until first crop. So, a precocious mamey sapote is one that bears its first crop a year or more earlier than other cultivars. As for the 'pace', I think you can reasonably expect the first crop a year or two earlier than a 'pantin'. The 'pace', in addition to being precocious, is also very productive. I might add that it's also incredibly delicious and bears in March when few other fruits are in season. What more could you ask for in a mamey sapote??

Jeff is right, so Rosigold would not be considered precocious, just an early reliable bloomer.

Thanks Jeff. Not only that, pace can take some cold weather as well. :) I had it in a custom bed sheet tent during the last couple of nights of freezing tents. When I took it out, she was perfectly healthy and the flowers are getting bigger and more are being produced. The leaves seem to be even redder due to this cool weather we are having. I wish I knew how to post pics on this site.

O.K. So how does one get a hold of some seeds? I've yet to try aGreen Sapote. I am a huge Mamey fan though. Because of where we live, we cannot really expect to plant Mamey, and get any fruit. That being said, I am extremely interested in getting a some GREEN SAPOTE SEEDS. I need to find someone who can send me seeds!!! If you know of anyone, or anyone that knows someone, who might be able to help, please let me know. I'm in it for the long haul, and am anxious to see how it does here: both on the barrier island, and on the mainland (not far from the ocean), in the Melbourne, Florida area. I am led to believe that the Green Sapote may be a tad bit "cold hardy", than any of the Mamey varieties. I am looking to try seedlings, GS grafted onto GS rootstock, and possibly GS grafted onto Mamey stock. I'll pay shipping, and whatever other "fees" that would be required. This may be the answer to my dreams, as the Mamey just will not make it this far up the East coast. My Rollinia are growing well so far.

Please let me know if you can help me out by hooking me up with a contact. I'll pay whatever is fair. I can pay by Paypal, Money order, Cashiers' check, or credit or debit card.