Wow, great to see you have a fruit set !

I actually just went out and looked at my BL, and voila, a couple of blooms. I doubt it will set like your Mai 1, but who knows..

I have a friend in Coral Springs who gave me a 24lb J30-1 fruit last week and when she brought me out to the tree to cut it down there were no less than 20 blooms/fruits in various sizes of development. The tree is a grafted tree of only 8 yrs old. I stopped counting after 20. I couldn't believe how amazing this tree was.
Marin

nice surprise harry

Do you think the fruit will survive the upcoming colder months? How soon do you think the largest fruit is to harvest?

Yesterday, I visited John Painter, in Pine Island/Cape Coral area. I bought a nice, ripe, "chunchy" jackfruit from him. It was from a seedling that he calls "topper". Also, some of his jackfruit trees had all sizes of fruits hanging. He had almost ripe jackfruits, small ones, and some flowering at different stages of development. John is a fantastic grower of tropical/sub-tropical trees. He does lots of foliar spray to his trees.

Hmmmm....with all these anecdotal jakfruit bloom/fruit sightings, I better go look at some of my other trees. I assumed that they would not be in bloom at this time...never mind in fruit. So I really didn't look at them when I did my yard survey. I may be further pleasantly surprised. Stay tuned.

Harry

My black gold has 2 female blooms right now.

Jeff

Nice!

Harry,

That is so awesome, you and your yard never cease to amaze us. Thanks for sharing

Jeff, any Pina Colada Mango Trees lying around?

Jacob

Jacob - I have a few pina colada trees.

Jeff

Funny I just came across this thread my Grafted Sweet Fairchild which I just got from Jeff a couple of months back has flowers also. This tree is only 4 ft tall with a 1 inch diameter trunk.

berto- i will be in the fort lauderdale area towards the end of jan- i'd love to check out john painter's place and buy some tropical fruit from him- do u think he would be up for a visit?

Send me an email. I may be able to help you out. By the way, Fort Lauderdale to John's place is more or less 3 hours by car.

Checked my other jakfruit trees. I did see what looks like a spur containing a female flower on a couple of trees....but no fruits anywhere else.

Harry

thanks berto- i had assumed it was within an hour's drive. I'll have to take a rain check. thanks anyway.

Today, I went back to John Painter's place in Pine Island/Cape Coral area and bought another jackfruit. This time, I bought a small Borneo Red. I also bought the last half a dozen of Nishikawa avocados. Nishikawa avocado is a Hawaiian variety supposed to have a high oil content.

Berto:

I'm very interested in the Borneo Red. I have two trees, but they are small and have never fruited. In fact, they are not going to be fruiting anytime soon based upon how they are growing. I'd be very appreciative if you would post pictures of the interior of the fruit when opened and, of course, your commentary about how the fruit was....especially in relation to other cultivars.. Thanks.

Harry

Harry,
This jackfruit was not fully developed. As a matter of fact, John sold it to me for half price. It was the last fruit from that tree. I will take some pictures, and I will post them here.

As I understand it, the borneo red has a tendency to bear underdeveloped/underpollinated fruit. Sometimes you end up with a fruit that's nearly 100% rag. Funnily the borneo red was the hottest jackfruit on the scene just a year or two ago :-).

Jeff

I have been on the hunt for Borneo Red for many years now. The hunt began after I heard that Chris Rollins from the Fruit and Spice Park had introduced it and said that it was the best jakfruit he had ever tasted. In the interim, I have planted out a couple of trees, but none have flourished. I have heard from other reliable sources that the Borneo Red is quite an excellent jakfruit. Noel Ramos has a friend, also in Coral Springs, whose name is George B.. George has a regularly fruiting tree which both he and Noel confirm is really good. I have other independent reports from Hawaii from a friend there that it is a superb fruit. On the otherhand, Richard Wilson of Excalibur thinks very little of it. He, of course is promoting his own red jakfruit....I think he calls it Dang Suria or something like that. And while I would generally trust all the other opinions over Richard's, I have to wonder about the fact that the Borneo Red is not being propagated by anyone. If it were as good as some say, why would it not be a current item on all the growers' propagation list? Good question, I think. Maybe it is the tendency to inadequately pollinate that is the issue. Anyway, I have one tree that has some prospects of being large enough in the future to bear fruit. But, the future time period before this happens is liable to be 10 years....who knows. Frustrated........Harry

Noel said that George's most recent crop of BR jacks were almost pure rag. Joseph from JoSan growers has mature bearing BR (that he bought them from fairchild many years ago) said that he doesn't like the BR because of low edible percentage. I have a couple of trees that I grafted from Joseph's tree.

Jeff

You know what's funny - Joseph from JoSan growers (who has a grove with various different cultivars of jacks) said that his most popular selling cultivar (fruit wise) is the old time NS1 :-).

Jeff

NS1 produces quite a decent fruit. I think it is the parent of one of my seedling trees. A seedling that I call Orange Crisp. I used to think that this seedling was really good......until I had my Black Gold x Tabouey cross and Sleep's Bangkok Lemon seedling. Now, my Orange Crisp has moved down to second tier.

Harry

OK. Yah I thought my NS1 seedling was really yummy too. Next year Harry is going to have to save a few pericarps of the BG x T for jeff :-).

Jeff

Finally, I was able to try the Borneo Red jackfruit. The fruit was a little over 7 lbs and it was an undeveloped fruit. It had a fair amount o latex, and the rags separated easily from the fatty bulbs. The seeds were a bit large. The flavor was absolutely fantastic/excellent. The actual crispy eating flesh was a little over 750 grams which is close to a one pound and three quarters of a pound (1 3/4 lb). There is nothing red about this fruit! I would call it a "Borneo Yellow"

Very cool Berto! Thanks for sharing the pictures.

Tomas

Very nice. The high proportion of rag is what I had been told was a common issue with the borneo red.

Jeff

Tomas,
You are welcome! I am glad you like this posting. I had fun making it. By the way, I have something for you. Please call me!
Berto

Jeeeeezzzz...this is what I have been obscessing over for the past ten or so years? And where's the "Red?" Thanks for posting this, Berto. I feel a great deal better about not having gotten one of these to fruit or even thrive in my yard thus far. But you did say that the flavor was "fantastic/excellent." So....I guess the quest must continue.

Harry

Harry,
I really liked the flavor and the crispness! Lately, I am tasting any fruit before I plant the tree. I have had some unpleasant surprises! Sometimes, it is impossible to try the fruit and we have to rely on somebody else's opinion.... Hum! Like you wrote "Where is the Red?"....The old Californian lady would say "where is the beef?" (old fast food commercial in California).

I just planted 2 Jackfruit trees here in Cape Coral, Fl. 1 is about 3 ft and the other is about 4 ft. It will be interesting to see how well they grow. I plan on protect them in the winter if needed. This past winter we had one night it did get down to 33 degrees for about 3 hrs.