california cherimoya growers roll call
I just wanted to see who else is trying to grow cherimoyas in california. I know Axel has been great with his knowledge and pics but if we has a thread with how others are faring I think it would be helpful to all.
What type of cherimoya are you growing and how old are your trees? Are they in ground or potted?
When do they normally bloom?
Do you hand pollinate?
When do your fruit ripen?
Any tips or observations that might be helpful?
I bought my trees this spring and left them in the pot until just a couple of days ago. It is a chaffey cherimoya that was a stick with about 4 leaves. It did bloom this year but I never bothered to hand pollinate because I thought the tree was too young. I think they blossomed in late june but I will need to check my notes.
I am in san rafael, CA (northern california).
The following thread was started by tammysf on November 15, 2009 at 10:28 am PST
I have 2 small cherimoya trees.
A seedling from a fruit purchaced in Spain, and a Fino de Jette.
They are both small.
The fino de Jette is ~8 ft tall but rather skinny still. I have had it for ~ 4 years but have tortured it by diging it out of the ground keeping it in a pot for a year and then re planting it at my new house.
It blooms the heavyest in May, but this year it bloomed a little bit all summer long.
I have never pollinated it as it is not very big, but this year it set 2 fruit on its own (whitch I removed).
I would think that you coule easily grow one in San Rafael if you chose the right location.
Jeff
The above followup was added by Jeff (woodland) on November 15, 2009 at 12:48 am PST.
I have abunch of seedlings I've neglected as well as a larger El Bumpo I never bothered to repot.
The El Bumpo I was impatient with and bought an overpriced little ugly little thing which the top broke off of in transport. (Funny thing is after that I found they turned up in quite a few places looking nice.) It came back and doubled in size. Not really branched much, but taller then me now.
The seedling for the most part easiely shrugged off high tempertures as longas the substrate they were in remained moist.
The above followup was added by Brian on November 15, 2009 at 1:13 pm PST.
I'm located in SoCal and I have 8 cherimoya seedlings from an unknown cultivar. I first tried cherimoya around Feb/March last year and kept the seeds. They sprouted in mid-May and the tallest is around 2 ft tall. I'm looking to graft late spring/summer.
The above followup was added by Rodney Cerritos, CA on November 15, 2009 at 4:26 pm PST.
I have many cherimoyas which I started all from seed. 12 yrs. ago I joined CRFG and our chapter chair at that time was Jay Rusky a cherimoya grower in Goleta and he sold fruit at San Luis Obispo farmers mrkt and after our CRFG meetings. So the bulk of my seedlings came from his fruit, which were white, chaffey,booth,bays and pierce if memory serves me well. So I have 3- seedlings 10+yrs roughly espailered against south faceing tractor shed wall that have lived through hard freezing with a little help(blankets and frost cloth)that are kept at about 8ft. tall.Three other seedlings out in the open ground maybe 30 ft. away that froze to the ground a couple of years ago with our super cold spell that are now back to about 7-8ft. tall but only two have sparse blooms this year.Have 11 other seedlings in ground with ages 4-6 yrs old and I grafted them with fortuna,spain, El bumpo,bays elixer,fino de jete,honeyheart,selma,big sister and oxheart atemoya. Oldest plant fruit yearly but are misshapened and have not had fruit from grafted varieties yet. I did do some hand pollenating this yr. and have a good set. Plants have been flowering since june and still have a few flowers now.This next year hoping to taste some of the grafted ones.All I can say is don't give up protect small plants so they can get some size on them then they can take cold better and even come back from hard freezes.Also growing a variety from Jack Swords that is a little hardier coming from highlands of Costa Rica (seedlings) to eventually become rootstock for all of my varieties.
The above followup was added by Scotty in A.G. on November 15, 2009 at 8:01 pm PST.
my tree i think is 3 or 4 years old i hand pollinate it this years 3 out 5 fruit are getting big im very happy since is my my first job as a bee not so bad ,tree is a container my soil is bad around here ,clay rocks you name it.it was purchase in the vallejo .. by the way tammy ? how are your mangos?
The above followup was added by ronald on November 16, 2009 at 10:00 am PST.
Five Cherimoya only one named cv spain. Flowers start just after the new growth in May. Flowers appear after every flush, so if I water irregularly I get flowers until growth stops about now. I have a few flowers right now.
George
The above followup was added by George on November 18, 2009 at 12:36 am PST.
Looks like one has set fruit. one is a seedling the other I picked up at your house last winter....or was that 2 winters ago...
The above followup was added by Sheila Bailey on November 18, 2009 at 7:29 pm PST.
Anyone have any pics of their trees?
Ronald: my mangos are doing great. My lancetilla is my fastest grower. If you go to marinmangos (dot) com there are some pics of my mangos and cherimoya.
Sheila: awesome that you have fruitset so soon. You just picked up the tree this year.
The above followup was added by tammysf on November 18, 2009 at 8:48 pm PST.
I have a grafted Chaffey I picked up back in March from Tammy. I thought for sure it was dead when it lost all of its leaves but it actually sprang back to life and had a few flowers.
II did a bad job of germinating seeds from the one or two fruit I ate this year, I only got 1 intentional seedling but luckily one of the seeds must have ended up in my potting soil because when I potted something else up the cherimoya popped up like a weed.
The above followup was added by Jason (z17, Palo Alto) on November 19, 2009 at 9:39 am PST.
Jason, the grafted Chaffey probably was dormant.
The above followup was added by Rodney Cerritos, CA on November 19, 2009 at 9:44 am PST.
Yeah, I realized later that it had went dormant. The odd thing was that it went dormant, or at least finally lost all of its leaves, in late April when everything else was starting to grow. It wasn't until late May, I think, that it started to show signs of life. Definitely out of sync with my other trees.
The above followup was added by Jason (z17, Palo Alto) on November 19, 2009 at 10:51 am PST.
I have two (one from tammy), looking to graft one over with Fino de Jete if I can find a scionwood...
The above followup was added by atc (sunnyvale) on November 20, 2009 at 12:23 am PST.
We had 3-4" snow in Clayton last week (once every 15 or 20 years), I have coverd my Cherimoya one night prior snowing. It was wormer today so I took the row cover off. I noticed the leaves turn brown completely , is the tree dead or it is in dormant right now? The leaves fell off easily after my gentle touch. Did your leaves fall off at this time? Is it necessary to protect the tree with a row cover or let the nature take its course? We bought the tree in October when it was 3 or 4' tall, it does not seem it grow too much...
The above followup was added by Jenny on December 15, 2009 at 8:04 pm PST.