Will Bollerman, one of the original members of our club, has fruit on her Sweet Chestnut – Castanea for the first time on her block at Sheldon Qld. No mean feat considering how difficult it is to grow in subtropical areas! It was grown from a nut/seed bought at the Cleveland market (for eating). The seedling is about 4.5m tall and has produced 30 or so large nuts, shown in the attached photograph. It is not deciduous as are most chestnuts. Her Sheldon block has a very hungry shale based soil and there is no water except for town water. Will is an exceptional gardener. (Ref: George Allen)
Sheryl: I spoke to David McIntyre from Chestnuts Australia who is a grower and nurseryman in NE Victoria where most chestnuts are grown. He said it could certainly be a tree with crenata genes – large nut, big hilum and the leaves may be a bit crenate but hard to say as there is infinite variations. He said there’s a Japanese chestnut Castanea crenata which will tolerate more heat. He was in Hungary, at a Chestnut conference in 2013 where a Brazilian presented a paper on one small orchard of C. crenata planted by a Japanese man in Brazil which is tropical. The paper also commented that the trees were barely deciduous in the hills above Sao Paulo if I remember correctly. Here’s an excellent American site which compares the different chestnuts: http://www.acf.org/find_a_tree.php
Cherry of the Rio Grande Tips
- Cherry of the Rio Grande will take hard cutbacks. Ours was cut back by more than half to about 2.5m. It has now bushed out and shot up about 1m. It has also light flowered and set some fruit. In our yard it’s a moderately vigorous small tree. Fruit are excellent, up to 45mm, pear shaped, like a very soft tasty black cherry with smaller seed. Unfortunately they don’t handle very well and need to be eaten straight from the tree, just like the birds do. A very useful attractive plant that in the US they say will take down to 20 F (-6.67 C). Daley’s say its frost tolerance is low. Ref: George Allen
- Eugenia aggregata – I have had my tree for quite a few years, and never had much fruit until this spring. I believe that the tree had not had enough water before, at least, I increased it for this year. We ate several quarts of delicious, dark-skinned fruit, but the season may be ending. It is perhaps the best-tasting of the Eugenias. http://toptropicals.com/pics/garden/05/eric/0030.jpg Ref: rarefruit.com
Cherimoya Tips
Greg Daley says the only time to graft cherimoya is in spring and when removing scion wood, store it in the fridge until leaves absciss revealing new buds and then graft. Cut the leaves off and leave a stub before putting in the vegetable crisper wrapped in a plastic shopping bag. I pushed the stubs off with my finger to expose underneath prior to wrapping the scion and graft in parafilm. I use the green 1cm wide tape which the florists use. I grafted using a very simple cleft graft. It was as easy / easier than grafting an apple or nectarine tree. Ref: Daleys website
Chempedak Tips
You can tell Chempedak plants apart from all the other Artocarpus because it is the only one that is hairy all along the stems. If seeds don’t form, most likely the fruit did not get properly pollinated. You can cook it and eat it like breadfruit. Ref: Oscar Hawaii
Ceylon Olive Tips
- Ceylon Olive Elaecarpus serratus by Sheryl
I had a request from Cedric in Maryborough for a Ceylon Olive so I rang Shirley Philpott who said that they use to eat them straight off the tree when she lived there as a young girl. It’s an ornamental medium-sized tree, indigenous to Ceylon, producing smooth, ovoid, green fruits of the size of olives which they resemble. The fleshy portion surrounding the seed is sub-acid. In its unripe state they are also used in pickling. It is propagated by seed and thrives in moist low-country up to 2000ft.
Carob Tips
Male leaves are small and wavy. In a planting of female trees, one male should be included for every 25 or 30 females. In southern Europe, branches from male trees are grafted onto some of the females in an orchard instead of interplanting male trees.
Carambola Tips
- There is an article in the California Rare Fruit Growers magazine from Dr. Mark Sullivan who advises that Star Fruit can be toxic to persons undergoing dialysis. Source: Dialysis & Transplantation medical journal – download the pdf file: http://www.eneph.com/pdf/v31n8p564.pdf
- Carambola and Grapefruit – drug interactions Like the grapefruit, carambola is considered to be a potent inhibitor of seven cytochrome P450 isoforms. These enzymes are significant in the first-pass elimination of many medicines, and, thus, the consumption of carambola or its juice in combination with certain medications can significantly increase their effective dosage within the body. Research into grapefruit juice has identified a number of common medications affected, including statins, which are commonly used to treat cardiovascular illness and benzodiazepines (a tranquilizer family including diazepam). Ref: Wikipediia
- Our Carambola trees here in the orchard are covered in delicious ripe fruits at the moment so it is hard not to rave about them. The trees make a beautiful specimen tree with long drooping branches that almost reach the ground, attractive foliage and very pretty small mauve flowers. The best thing about the carambola is of course the fruit. Large five or six cornered star shaped fruits adorn the trees twice a year in our region, once in Summer and again in the winter. Some varieties of carambola are high in oxalic acid which in moderation is not a problem but if taken in high doses it can cause health problems. Another trait of the acidic fruits is their ability to clean and polish metals, especially brass, as it dissolves the tarnish and rust. The juice from a carambola can also be used to remove rust stains from fabric. Kary and Kembangen are sweeter less acid varieties. Here are a couple of ideas for ways to use your fruit. Ref: Daleys
- Luscious Fruit Liqueurs. Top and tail the Carambola and take a bit off each of the edges and slice thickly. Tightly pack a sterile jar with fruit and fill the cavities with sugar. Cover the fruit with any cheap vodka and cap tightly with the lid. The sugar will not dissolve immediately, but give it time. Wait 6 months (yes, wait!) before drinking the liqueur. You can use the fruit in some type of dessert. Ref: contributed by Bobbi from the www.
- To stop Starfruit from going brown when you cut them, let them “fall” into a plate of cold water and about three drops of lime juice or go or you can sprinkle them with Fresh Fruit powder (Stevia).
Candle Nut Tips
- It is the national tree of Hawaii and Aleurites should not be eaten raw, except in very tiny quantity, like less than one nut. From my own experience they do make you feel nauseous/ill when you eat more than 2-3. In Mexico they are used as a diet aid. The people that sell them for high price recommend eating 1/4 nut per day. They really do take away your appetite. Ref: Oscar – Hawaii
- Mike Foale reports: There was a note about candle nut in the last newsletter. I would like to add further comment. Aleurites moluccana is widespread from some north Queensland forests to Indonesia (where it is called Kemiri) and southern Philippines and into Asia. I note that the information in the Feb/March newsletter is from Hawaii where candle nut oil is marketed for massage and skin lotion. The kernel is much used in Indonesia in making a paste (sauce) to go with cooked vegetables. Being a traditional food, it is exported from Timor Leste to Indonesia as raw kernel. The oil contains up to 30% of alpha linolenic acid, the amega 3 fatty acid found also in flax-seed. It seems that it would substitute or supplement for fish in giving the Indonesians this valuable fatty acid in their diet. The kernel causes tummy upset if eaten raw, as mentioned, but when roasted the toxic alkaloid is destroyed and the nut tastes OK. Tung oil, valuable as a wood-sealing paint, comes from a closely related species Aleurites chinensis.
Calamansi Tips
- Flower Induction of Calamansi For flower induction I spray my Calamansi with a plain variety of urea 2 percent by volume. If it naturally flowers at the time when everyone else has flowers and you don’t want fruit when everyone else has fruit, I spray the flowers which of course fall off. Then I induce them to flower after a few weeks and more quietly this time, laugh when I alone harvest off-season Calamansi! Ref: Alexis de Manuel
- Verman from the Philippines says that he propagated scions from a calamansi tree and kept it with wet toilet paper in a Ziploc bag kept a in the crisper section of his refrigerator – easy to graft. Just follow the steps shown in the group’s file section. Ref: rarefruit-ph@yahoo.com
Buying Fruit Trees Tips
- A pet hate of mine is looking at a fruit tree for sale in a nursery and not knowing whether it is a seedling, cutting grown or marcotted. You can usually tell if it is grafted as you can see the graft and it usually has this information on the label but a lot of times it does not even detail the rootstock. When you start out putting in edible trees, you think it will produce fruit in a short period of time and it just might not if it is a seedling! I have a very old Star Apple which must be 30 years old and it has never flowered nor fruited. If the tree looks too big for the pot, it may be pot bound. Ref: Sheryl Backhouse
- Lack of fertiliser will also be a reason for non-fruiting trees.