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This is a tree that is not well known or widely enough cultivated given its good taste and very useful characteristics. A small bush or tree to about 3 mtrs that can easily be kept to hedgerow size, by pruning.  It is obviously closely related to the common guava with the same basic structure. The seeds in this case are not a problem; they are small and unobtrusive. There is no strong aromatic taste/odour as occurs in the close guava relatives. The taste appeals to the majority of people; sweet/sour with a fruity taste described by some as like a pineapple jam, hence its other name of pineapple guava, which is confusing as the Feijoa has the same common name.

One of the things that make this fruit stand out is that it doesn’t suffer from fruit fly infestation; you can let the fruit fall onto the ground when ripe and eat them in the day. I have seen the occasional fruit with a tear in the skin infected. It must be the skin that prevents the infection. The fruit-spotting bug does sting the fruit but the result seems to be a small hard lump that doesn’t affect the edibility of it. The skin is good to eat even when the fruit is quite firm. Like some of the other Myrtaceae trees it is quite hardy; grows from the Amazon to Argentina and withstands temperatures to minus 2.2 deg Celsius. It’s drought hardy (can’t kill them in a pot with neglect) and I think that they will stand water logging as well. Some of the literature says that they won’t do well in light sand, but our place is sand and they grow well (loads of mulch might be the reason). They fruit readily in pots at about 600 mm high. It is remarkably slow to germinate from seed, taking 3 months at times to start, but then every seed seems to grow. Very hardy useful plant! There is quite a bit of information available on the internet and below is some information from Fruits of Warm Climates by Julia F. Morton, Miami, FL.

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/brazilian_guava_ars.html

Distribution   The most wide-ranging guava relative, P. guineense occurs naturally from northern Argentina and Peru to southern Mexico, and in Trinidad, Martinique, Jamaica and Cuba, at medium elevations. It is cultivated to a limited extent in Martinique, Guadeloupe, the Dominican Republic and southern California. Trials in Florida have not been encouraging. At Agartala in Tripura, northeast India, this plant has become thoroughly naturalized and runs wild.

Cultivars      While no named cultivars have been reported, this species has been crossed with the common guava and the hybrids are dwarf, hardy and bear heavy crops.

Soil            The plant will not develop satisfactorily on light sandy soil.

Food Uses    This guava is suitable for baking and preserving. It makes a distinctive jelly which some consider superior to common guava jelly.

Other Uses   The wood is strong and used for tool handles, beams, planks and agricultural instruments. The bark, rich in tannin, is used for curing hides.

Medicinal Uses    In the interior of Brazil, a decoction of the bark or of the roots is employed to treat urinary diseases, diarrhoea and dysentery. In Costa Rica, it is said to reduce varicose veins and ulcers on the legs. A leaf decoction is taken to relieve colds and bronchitis. (Willie says that guava leaves are commonly used in Indonesia for diarrhoea and are very effective)

The description of the fruit is quite a bit different from what we have in Australia; it is possible that ours is a hybrid. “The fruit, round or pear-shaped, is from 1/8 to 1 in (1-2.5 cm) wide, with yellow skin, thick, pale-yellowish flesh surrounding the white central pulp, and of acid, resinous, slightly strawberry-like flavour. It contains numerous small, hard seeds and is quite firm even when fully ripe.” Quite different to what I’ve seen and tasted – what we have is a very good fruit.

Recommended…..and the club has some small plants.

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We farm 14 properties here in Rochedale and we have farms as well at Kalbar and Warwick which is about 1-2 hours inland from the coast and the main product that we grow are Shallots, Parsley, Chinese Vegetables, Cos Lettuce and now that we have our new packing shed we’ll be going into the mescalin mixes as well. This new packing shed has come about because the world is changing some people might say for the better, some people might say for the worse but everybody today is paranoid about food so the old concept of packing in an open store is over and they now want us to pack inside a sealed coolroom type facility so when we get going there’ll be masks/boots/gowns purely for the issues of food safety. We have two areas here: the first is the dirty area and the next will be the hygiene area. The produce will go into the first part of the coolroom and have all the dirt taken off it then go into the next facility where it’s hydrocooled so it’s immediately taken down to 1º and this happens within one hour of harvesting a product so the quicker you get the produce cooled, the longer the product lasts. The water is sanitized during washing of the Vegetables and one is a spa type system which is air agitated to get it going and the other is a shower type. It’s a type of chlorine but a special type which is registered for food.  A lot of the product we do ends up in prepared salads and because of some of the food scares they’ve had in recent times, people are paranoid about the product being contaminated. It can be at Mrs. Crocketts the same day and they can prepare that night and you could buy it the following day at the store. If the product has any bacteria in it, and it’s put into their salads, it will grow in there so it has to be removed before. With the shallots, they’re put into a plastic sleeve wet – we don’t dry them. Coolroom temperature is between 2 and 4º but if we get a really cold day in winter, the coolroom can feel warmer. Sheryl Is this area being subdivided shortly? Rodney Yes, we’ll be going to Kalbar and Warwick so we’ll use an air-conditioned truck to bring it down to process it here. We have a staff of around 55 so it’s a fair operation. Some of our customers also want other farms to put their product through us. Our product goes to Melbourne/Townsville and Sydney. Sheryl What’s in the white buckets? Rodney We’re using new technology for soil sterilisation. It’s a machine which uses steam and hot lime. George Basically it’s lime that’s gone through the kiln and hasn’t been rehydrated. Rodney The reason they call it hot lime is because you put water with it and you get a very hot reaction so that’s the purpose of the lime, it reacts when you put it in the soil with the steam. George That’s one of the classic things of getting rid of bodies isn’t it? Rodney Don’t know – I’ve never tried it! We haven’t used methyl bromide for many years mainly because it just got too expensive. Mark What are you trying to destroy in the soil? Rodney When you’re growing some of the crops that we grow, it’s not possible to grow and mechanical harvest them if you have weed populations so it’s aimed at controlling weeds. Sheryl Do you steam the soil before putting in every new crop? Rodney No, steam has been around for a very long time but when they just use steam it kills everything in the soil so using steam with the hot lime, you don’t use as much heat in the ground but it lasts for a longer period of time so you keep the temperature at 60º and it gets rid of a lot of the bad guys in the ground but the good ones live at a higher temperature. As soon as the temperature has dropped in the soil which is the same day, you can plant. The machine goes on tracks and is like a rotary hoe but it only turns very slowly. It’s not a primary tilling machine so you have to have your ground in prime condition first and it goes down about 8 inches and it also controls nematodes as well. We’re still in the experimental stage with this machine because it does lift your pH so in these types of soil where they are naturally acidic, it’s not such a problem but some of your black soils in the Lockyer might be different. Sheryl What do you keep your pH at? Rodney Around 6 to 6½ . Without applying lime in these soils, you’re struggling to get above 5. We also have a machine that distils the water before it goes into the machine. We use to use dolomite or gromag but now we don’t because we can’t afford to be doing both. Bob What’s the best lime to lower your pH? Rodney That depends on who you’re talking to. George Do you get soil/leaf analysis done? Rodney Yes, we just use the government one or a private lab Simbio at Coorparoo. Joe Where do you get your main irrigation from?  Rodney  We have a dam and recycle our water so that after we wash the product, the water goes into our dam and is then recycled out onto the farm. We have bores and a creek supply – no town water. George The water table around this area was dropping rather significantly for a while. Rodney At this end of Rochedale, there’s virtually no water left and hasn’t been for quite some time. Only some of the shallow ones recharge. With the others, you’re just left with a sand bed.  We grow Chinese Vegetables all through the summer then put in Dutch Carrots and rotate the crops. The Chinese Vegetables have a natural chemical in them that helps in nematode control so by growing these and planting our carrots after, we get the extra benefit. A lot of these are currently oversized because when it should have been picked, it wasn’t because of the weather. We try not to get the same vegetable in the same plot more than once a year. We probably have 20% of the shallot market. We supply through Coles and you can’t supply unless you have a QA (quality assurance) program in place. Choy Sum has a thin long stem, Pak Choy is short and fat you’ll see 3 to a bunch, Buk Choy has a white stem but it depends on who you buy from!! Woolworths sometimes have them around the other way! You’ll also see a flowering Choy Sum and we use to grow them but we switched over to the hybrid non-flowering type. In Asia they like the flowering types but they don’t here in Australia so at certain times of the year, we’d have to hoe them in because they’d go to flower and nobody would buy them. We use both plugs (seedlings) and direct seed. Sheryl Do you chill any of your seed prior to planting out? Rodney No Sheryl I bought back from Vietnam some slow bolting Coriander to give to members in the Club and they presoak then chill it prior to planting out over there. Bob Why don’t you have white cabbage moth? I also don’t see grass hoppers. Rodney We don’t see white moth these days. It’s interesting that in the old days when they use to use DDT and others, and it use to multiply in those days but since we’ve got newer/softer chemicals so we now get diamondback moth so whether it’s got to do with birds around I don’t know. Our biggest problem is centre cluster grubs or diamondback moth in the Chinese Vegetables. They can be worse than the cabbage white moth but the good thing about these with the BT’s around, they’re good to control but it’s only for the caterpillars. BT is bassilus theringensis.  We use Nitrophoska fertiliser before planting out and we might put a bit of Potassium Nitrate through the water if they need it during growing. We used Potassium at one stage on Shallots and use CK88 as a side dressing. There’s an issue with food safety. We use to use a lot of fowl manure in years gone by but we’re not allowed to use it now – very shortly it’s going to be banned by the EPA. Sheryl How are the organic people going to go? Rodney They’ll have to use treated compost. We’re not even allowed to use Dynamic Lifter because the process is not good enough – it’s the bacteria. We’re not allowed to use anything organic – nothing that hasn’t been treated. One of the issues we are dealing with at the moment because we don’t use fowl manure anymore and because we grow a lot of crops a year, you get into trouble with the organic carbon in the ground so one of the issues we are looking at is having composts that conform to a certain standard so that if it is composted properly and you get the heat processes right, you can get them out. What happens is that it can take 12 months and people take shortcuts so now there’s a QA coming in and it will be certified that it has no ecoli or salmonella in it. If your soil structure starts to deteriorate, you get erosion. In the past, people got sick and didn’t worry about it but when people get food poisoning these days and it triggers an alert in the system, they can easily find out the common source so there are litigation issues. They recently had a case in America of green onions coming in from Mexico and people got hepatitis and it destroyed the green onion market over there. The diamondback moth is immune to a lot of the harder chemicals. We harvest parsley by machine and the rest are done manually. Bob How long have you got to pick them? Rodney About a week Sheryl How much do workers earn? Rodney 16 cents a bunch. Australians don’t pick product these days and haven’t since the late 80’s – our staff are mainly Asians/Iraqi and Pakistani but our best lady on Shallots has picked 43 tubs in a day and there’s 40 bunches in a tub! The average worker would do 20-30 tubs a day but an Australian would be lucky to pick 6-9 tubs a day. We’re in a lot of trouble with labour these days. In the 80’s when all the Vietnamese and Cambodians were coming in, we were embarrassed with the amount of people coming in every day wanting work but now it’s almost impossible to get those people because they now either have their own farms or have found other work. Some of the people who started with me here in the 80’s are now very rich people – very frugal with their money and saved. They’re highly valued in factories these days. We’re looking at machine harvesting now. The government’s migration policy now is geared toward business or rich people and you can get into this country if you’ve got money or a special skill but they don’t class the workers as having a special skill. Historically, if you look at Australia if you go back before the war, all the Italians were coming in and   look at who owns all the cane farms up north. Australia’s been built on a migrant policy; they came in, worked hard then got their own businesses. Sheryl What about backpackers? Rodney We don’t get many here and this work is different because we’re picking 52 weeks of the year, so if you work here you have a job for life. Up around Bundaberg, they still don’t get enough. Merv One of the sad things is with both Federal and State with regards priority, primary industry is very low and when you look at horticulture, it’s worse. They’re doing something with cattle. We were up at the Nambour Research Station a couple of years ago and they were cutting back as fast as they could and if you didn’t have the money in the door, they didn’t do anything so you’re faced with this problem that Australia is going global and is not interested in primary industry anymore.  Sheryl Depending on the soil and fertiliser, will the same vegetable taste the same as the next lot ie how do you control the taste? eg if you buy hydroponic lettuce, some of them are bitter occasionally. Rodney There are a number of factors that will control taste and texture and one is whether it is consistently grown. If you have a bitter lettuce, then almost certainly it is because at some stage it’s got stressed, the longer it takes to grow, or if it hasn’t been getting enough water but if the lettuce is grown evenly, it’ll have the sweetness. Other factors are frost or excessive cold or excessive rain that affects the ability of the plant to get oxygen into the soil so if the plant normally takes 10 weeks and because of lack of or too much water or something else and the period is lengthened out to 11 weeks, the plant will not taste as good. The other thing that affects it is we are very close to the coast here and although they grow faster here and they actually taste better but they don’t keep as good. If you get a product of ours from Kalbar or Warwick, it will keep better than from here Sheryl What time frame are we talking about? Rodney It will be at least a week. We have a high humidity here and we get a nice soft plant but because it is softer, it doesn’t keep as well so a plant out of Lockyer/Kalbar will physically last and you won’t get break down because it’s not a softer plant. It will always taste better from here than up there but won’t keep as good. We direct seed Parsley into the ground and harvest it for 12 months and it’s hard to get your head around how much is used. The biggest quantity of Parsley we’ve ever done was for Mrs. Crockets at Christmas and we did 16 tonne in one week so that’s an awful lot of Parsley! We have 3 other farms all in Parsley. We machine harvest the Curley Parsley or sometimes it’s called Triple Curled or Frizz but this one is called Inca. We also grow Italian or Continental as it’s referred to in the market and it’s sold by weight. We also handpick and it’s sold by the bunch. If it gets too rain on, it’ll go yellow. We’ll reharvest it again in 3 weeks time and do this for 12-15 months but it depends on the weather. If it gets too tall, we’ll come back and mow it just above the ground and throw the stalks away. The height we cut at depends on the amount of yellow there is underneath because if we cut too much yellow, they have too much work in the packing shed. The parsley harvester fits onto the back of one of our tractors and it has a special type of bandsaw we have made up which cuts the parsley and takes it onto the elevator (about 1 mtr long) and is put straight into a bin and it will harvest around 1 tonne an hour. The blades don’t last very long and we can’t sharpen them. The machine was made in New Zealand but designed in Germany. You could grow parsley in a pot for 12 months no trouble. The biggest trouble we have is with lady beetles which are good but for some reason or other customers don’t like them in their salads! In springtime we have a lot of trouble. In dryer weather you get the red spider coming in that doesn’t give us much trouble and you get the lady beetles coming in to eat them. Peter How often would you water? Rodney Every couple of days for 1-2 hours at 4ml an hour – 10ml every 2 days. The only trouble we have with the machine is with Italian Parsley when it’s wet and it gets a bit slippery at the front of the machine. Bob How fast do you go? Walking speed? Rodney Depends on the type of parsley but probably a bit faster than walking speed. With about 80% of the properties around here, you’ll see big concrete open water tanks because the bores were never good enough to pump straight out onto the farm and they would have their bores going 24 hours a day, the tank would fill up overnight and the following day, they’d use this as their water for the day and you might have several bores going into the one tank to get the quantity of water they would need. The steaming machine is made in Italy and the one here was only No. 4 in the world. The hot lime is kept in a stainless steel hopper and it drops down into a hydraulically driven rotary hoe type blade and it has 2 bars in it set at different levels that injects steam in it. It also has a boiler in it that injects steam into the ground mixed with the lime. Dale What fuel do you use? Rodney  Diesel.  The machine is very slow and does 75-100 metres per hour. It cost $250,000 Sheryl How often would you have to do it? Rodney  We’re hoping once a year. It’s not economical to have someone going in there weeding. Our seeder came from NZ – has 12 rows and is electronically driven and you can turn one of them off and plant a six row. The configuration is very easy to change. It has a little foam in the centre that spins electronically and the seed falls down between the foam. I went to Italy and Amsterdam looking for harvesters and met the New Zealanders over there! We also have a weeder that fits onto the front of the tractor and it weeds the lettuce. We’re looking at designing Shallot harvesters, Chinese Vegetable harvesters etc. because we can’t get enough staff. We use to have 6 people to plant out Celery and Lettuce – one driver, 3 people on the machine and 2 others organising for 2 days but with the automatic planter, it’s 1 person 1 day.

Article compiled by Sheryl Backhouse

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I have pieced all the pieces together on Pitaya Flowering and fruit production using Light Supplementation. Here is my opinion (semi-scientific from experience and collected works) NOTE: seeds and cuttings of Pitaya are “Long-Day” sensitive and should root and grow better after Spring Equinox when going into long days. H Undatus (and related species) are Long-Day plants, which flower and fruit between the Spring Equinox and finish, usually before the Fall equinox. (Autumn)  Conjecture 1) — The Pitaya flowering process generally kicks in around the year’s longest day, following up on the continuously increasing day length from the Spring Equinox. By then, the Pitaya’s Phytochrome protein (Pr.) has absorbed light from “daylight” at a frequency of (red 660nm) and converted the Phytochrome (Pr) into (Pfr.). The now active Pfr., has been forced into the plant’s cell nucleus to create flowering hormone. At dusk each day this (Pfr) absorbs the setting sun/dusk light (Far-red light at 730nm) this shocks  the (Pfr) back into inactive (Pr) and moved it out of the cell nucleus. This switches off the flowering signal. Obviously because the days are long the Pfr remains active in the nucleus for long enough to create enough flowering hormone to cause flower buds to appear. Classical flower initiation onset, after the longest-day, is about 2 weeks, when up to about five flower buds will appear on a plant. Many will become open flowers after about 2 more weeks. All the other peripheral plant environmental-factors such as fertilizers, temperatures, stresses, droughts, or water, are not significant influences on the flowering onset. They all only promote a good healthy plant and a good yield.

Light Supplementing Pitaya plants are slightly smarter than politicians so we can fool them most of the time. As the Fall Equinox approaches the day lengths start to shorten and the (Pfr) {which is active} in the cells during light periods, starts to get changed back into (Pr) {inactive} increasingly sooner, and hence less and less flowering hormone is processed. In normal terms, by the Fall Equinox (equal day/night) the flowering process stops. We can, and the Asians do, enhance this late flowering process. Provided temperatures do not drop too much and  the plant has lots of stored energy, we can implement a late yield. By using Incandescent lamps, (incandescent lamps have a better (red @ 660nm) than most other type’s of lamp.  Some specialty “grow” fluorescent lamps have good red, but they have low lumen output at any distances from the plants.

Lamps simulate “Long-days”  The name of the game here is to shock the (Pr) {inactive} Phytochrome, which regresses during increasing dark periods, back into active (Pfr ) and to drive them back into the cell nucleus, to keep making flowering hormone. We can either light the crop continuously after dark or light the “dark” period for 25% of each hour, usually starting at about 10pm and continuing until approx 2.00am. This fools the plant into thinking it is all one long day. Plants yield better when they sleep a bit at night so they can rearrange their sugar storage efficiently. However, a continuous light from 10pm to 2.00am can be used with no real ill-effects. 100 Watt incandescent bulbs are usually used, spaced about 5 feet apart from each plant, delivering about 10 lumens {foot candles}.  The actual lumen output is not very critical because all it has to do is shock the Phytochrome with a few photons. To save power, the lights can be cycled on and off to give about 25% timed light. There is a technique being used lately where 400 Watt Metal Halide or Sodium (High Intensity Discharge) lamps are mounted high enough above the crop to reach plants 40-50 feet away which are either swivelled on a boom or reflected by a reflector, like a “light house”, causing light to fall on each plant 3 of 4 times an hour between 10pm-2.00am. The HID’s are not very high in 660nm red but they make up for it in Lumen output. Again, provided that each plant feels the equivalent of about 10 lumens of light at each passing, the Phytochrome will be switched back to creating flowering hormone. Taiwan is reported to be creating an additional flowering season, extending from the Fall equinox through to the next spring equinox. This de-facto means that the plant is in continuous production. Cooler off-season crops actually have the capacity to make larger sweeter fruits because the plant can deposit more sugars in the fruit when their metabolism is not racing at full speed in the heat. Pitaya fruit can be grown from between 35 – 50 days with no excessive sweetness increase but up to 25% increase in weight. This may be a good way to get a high yield out of the second crop even if the plants get tired. Provided the plant nutrition can be adequately maintained, and the temperature kept within the plant’s comfort zone, continuous production is possible and feasible. 

For more information about Dragon Fruit reference the Yahoo Group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PitayaFruit/

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This evergreen tree grows up to around 15 feet.  It has a big buttress and short stubby roots which hold great amounts of water, thus a drought resistant tree.  The nut has a hard shell and splits open when ripe, releasing around 15 fingernail size seeds.  If the seeds are soaked overnight in water they will split and begin to germinate like a bean but with two compressed leaves already formed.  These germinating seedlings can be eaten raw or lightly cooked/fried in combination with other dishes of one’s own choice.  They are among the best nuts in terms of flavour and taste.

A grafted tree will bear fruit around 2 years and seedlings within 5 years.  In some African countries, the tree is grown commercially for making flour from the nuts.  This will be a good substitute for people intolerant to eating wheat flour products. Because the plant needs little water to survive and the flowers are highly scented, this tree is widely treasured as a gift plant and as a bonsai in Taiwan and Japan.

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On a recent visit to South Australia I caught up with Ian Tolley who taught production horticulture to visiting Ag.Sc. students from the University of Adelaide, Waite Campus for more than 40 years. He travels extensively overseas as a consultant/trouble shooter advising governments and industry on Citrus within a framework of Horticulture. In 1965 he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in Citriculture. He also has an ABC gardening session every 6 weeks. In 1995 he was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for services to the community, horticulture and the citrus industry and with Bruce Morphett has written for the SA Botanic Gardens an illustrated handbook called Citrus for Everyone.

Citrus in Pots

Ian:   For terracotta pots there’s an excellent product out in a spray pack called Terra-Shield. You can clean the inside of the pot with stainless steel wool before you use it and spray it 2 or 3 times. It won’t allow the magnesia to seep out and make the pots look awful – it’ll make them waterproof and it’s permanent. It’s a methyl silicone compound so it really lasts.

Sheryl:    I have some very large ceramic pots I was thinking of putting some citrus in, but don’t like the idea of having to repot every so often. I was thinking of painting on something to burn off the roots when they touch the sides.

Ian:    You’re talking about Spinout but what will happen is that when the roots touch the sides they will just go round and round.

Sheryl:    It will become root bound!

Ian:   Undoubtedly, but it won’t cause the tree a moment’s worry in the pot. It has never been told that root bound is bad – it has never been told that shaping trees is good. It’s only when you get out into the orchard and you’ve got a pot bound tree grown in a small bag. If you plant it like that, it may never get established and when the first wind that comes along then there’s a problem.

If you want to use wine tubs then you should prepare them for long term use before planting. Use raw linseed oil and soak them with several applications because it tightens up the boards and makes them waterproof.  If you’re really worried, then line the sides with 6mm black plastic. Make sure you’ve got several big auger holes in the bottom, one inch (25mm) in diameter. Use shade-cloth to cover the bottom. This will allow water to drain out of the auger holes but not the potting media. Sit the tub on two 3”x2” (7.5 x 5cm) hardwood timber bearers as level bases. Drainage will never be a problem and the barrel will last for decades. Now you can check that only a little water leaches out the drainage holes and not a drop more, saving fertiliser loss by leaching.

Sheryl:   So I don’t have to repot every couple of years?

Ian:   No – some of my citrus in tubs have been in the same substrate for 20 years but you must buy potting media that has the 5 ticks on the container. These are ASK Australian Standard requirements. Basically it should have a pH5.5 to 6.5 and an air filled porosity (AFP) of 25%. Some mixes have fertilisers added to the substrate and are then usually labelled as ‘citrus mix’.

Sheryl:  What do you think are the best varieties to go into pots?

Ian:   In principle all citrus species grow well in pots. The larger the fruit, the bigger the pot should be. All need to be shaped to maintain a compact shape producing many short but fruitful spurs. It is the way for even crop production and manipulation.

Propagation Mix

Use builder’s sand, washed and cleaned to cover seed for germination, using standard potting media as the substrate. Kevin Handreck in Adelaide is a fellow member of the International Plant Propagator’s Society (IPPS) – his book ‘Growing Media for Ornamental Plants and Turf’ is the plant grower’s bible and you must have it as a reference. He has revised and enlarged his 1984 original, now third edition published in 2002.  (ISBN 0 86840 796 8.)  The balance of the media is fertiliser and there are many forms. I tend to use organic types – Neutrog & Easy-Grow, both of which use compressed pelleted chicken manure bases. They are slow release and provide the bulk of the NPK segment, but both have micro-elements. I apply an annual dressing in spring over the garden for a very wide range of plants. For pots, unless they are very large, these fertilisers tend to overfill the space normally allowed for watering. An improved way for home gardeners with smaller containers is to try using Seasol on a regular fortnightly schedule as liquid feed. It contains growth stimulants and is not a fertiliser on its own. Include their Powerfeed to provide nutrients and the combination is easy to use.

Book Reference

Sheryl:   Louis Glowinski in Melbourne says that the editors just won’t do any corrections when reprinting his book.

Ian: I edited the Citrus section of Louis’ book “The Complete Book of Fruit Growing in Australia” at his request. He told me also of the publisher’s reluctance to amend the text. I know he is unhappy about it but in general, it is an excellent reference book.  

Rootstock influence

Let me dispel a myth about rootstocks in pots. Potted plants automatically develop root growth to fill the pot so even on this ‘blasted’ Swingle citrumelo (and don’t edit ‘blasted’ out!) you could put that in a pot and it would do fine. Any rootstock is suitable providing the potting media meets the criteria I’ve mentioned. There is a nursery in Northern California that says ‘we are using a special citron dwarfing rootstock and have done for many generations’. This is a load of codswallop because any rootstock will do in a pot because the pot ultimately restricts the root ball and limits the top growth! If you use slow growing rootstocks like the deciduous Poncirus trifoliata [it grows the best quality fruit as well as its dwarfing mutation P.trifoliata var. monstrosa (flying dragon.)] So if you wanted superb quality fruit – internal and external, these rootstocks impart a cold tolerance which is fantastic in the lower cooler areas of Australia. In the tropics they will slow rank growth. You will get prolific precocious cropping from both and they are resistant to nematodes and phytophthora.

Seedling or cutting grown Citrus

If you should want to try this then they should only be grown in pots as they may be affected by phytophthora parasitica in tropical/sub-tropical climates or phytophthora citrophthora in temperate climates if grown in soil.

Rootstocks

I’ve spent over 40 years studying and trialling citrus rootstocks and rootstock/scion interactions. Cleopatra mandarin rootstock produces good quality fruit – it’s great on alkaline (pH10) soils. It can be slow growing and a little bit of a light cropper to start with but once it settles in, it’s OK. For Broken Hill or other similar limestone areas this would be one of the few that would cope in such harsh conditions. For you in sub-tropical to tropical areas it grows well. It is mildly tolerant to phytophthora and nematodes, but as for many citrus rootstocks, mounding will avoid wet feet in heavy rainfall periods.

Cross-Pollination induces more seediness in Citrus

40 years ago I imported a tangelo group from California. All are Dancy mandarin x Duncan Grapefruit. Orlando,(early) Minneola,(mid-season) and Seminole.(late maturing.) We were told they won’t crop unless you cross pollinate them. We went to no end of trouble with Lemons and Valencias to get cross-pollination. I can tell you that Orlando can produce 50 seeds and outdo Murcott anytime! Minneola were somewhat the same with 30-40 seeds and that was unsettling. Seminole we could get up to 60-80 seeds, so I began to query this ‘fact’. The Californians still said that this was the way to go. We were able to produce good sized crops with much less seed when grown in areas more isolated from other pollinators. So this was an exercise in ‘don’t accept all you are told’ but do your own trials in your own environment if you are not certain. Some years later, we found more real facts from the work done by Dr. Anna Kultinow at Waite Institute Campus of CSIRO into developing seedless mandarins (refer to my book). Seedlessness affects fruit size so some varieties that are normally a good size if you do not pollinate them (e.g. cover them with bee proof netting) and not get any pollination, the fruit size drops to a stage where it is no longer commercially practical. Seedless Valencias seldom get to large size because they don’t have seeds so if you have 3-5 seeds you get reasonable size Valencias.

From a pollination point of view in mandarins, you have to determine if it has a propensity for over-pollination and therefore extreme seediness like the Murcott. Now we have a bind that Dr. Koultinow is in the middle of where she can’t go any further. By saying ‘if I give you a Murcott that is absolutely seedless, I can’t guarantee you large fruit size’. There is a trade-off in pollination of citrus cultivars right through that we would like to have the best of all possible worlds.

The summary of what I observe currently is this: that we need a little pollination for the varieties of which we speak in the mandarin and mandarin hybrids. Minneola, Orlando and Seminole are mandarin hybrids, all of those are Dancy Mandarin crossed. (note: I didn’t say Tangarine because that word is an American sales ploy.)

So we need to put up with some seed and enjoy some superb varieties particularly Minneola provided you leave until ripe on the tree. If you try and market it with a glossy skin – firm, tight, packable it’s as sour as any lemon you will ever grow. These are some of the trade-offs with some varieties.

There’s a new variety, Daisy, but if you have Black Spot in your area you could have a really good collection of spores if you’re a Pathologist! (Lovely fruit – lousy growing) In Morocco they grow seedless Clementines on large orchards over 500 acres where they don’t get cross-pollinated. All the new varieties are aiming for as little seed as possible, as resistant to fungal diseases as possible, easily peelable, good colour and preferably with regular cropping. If you do get alternate bearing, this can be solved by pruning and tree shaping following the off-crop year. All citrus fruit is born on terminals. Reducing terminals AFTER a light crop reduces the following crop from heavy to moderate but larger fruit. Kara is the latest maturing mandarin, easy to peel and excellent flavour. It does have a few bumps on the skin so it’s not saleable in the marketplace, but is an excellent fruit for the home garden.

Correct Pronunciation and Identity

Sheryl:    What is the correct way to pronounce:

Persimmon     

Pers-immon. (Per-simmon is the American pronunciation)

Tangelo          

Tang-elo with the emphasis on the first syllable – not Tan-gelo (only one l also)

Poorman

Pomelo is pronounced Pomelo and that name is often used instead of its proper name of Poorman. It’s great for breakfast. The tree is easy to grow and a consistent cropper. The fruit hangs on the tree much longer than the common white fleshed Marsh grapefruit. Poorman (or Pomelo) has very few seeds, dark flesh, very juicy, when you eat it you think – I’m drowning in this! and when you finish you say – in my mouth I have a beautiful grapefruit aftertaste which you don’t get in the Pummelo family. Poorman is thought to be an Orange x Seville hybrid first recorded in Australia as early as 1820. New Zealand introduced it in 1855 because it has a low heat requirement. They renamed it New Zealand grapefruit, and latterly Goldfruit. They can’t grow true grapefruit in NZ because of their cold climate. (low heat units)  We have a Smooth Red Seville (looks like a red grapefruit) that is an Australian mutation of the common rough (yellow) Seville. It is sour but good for marmalade. These two are NOT related to the Pummelo (citrus maxima) family

Pummelo        

Pronounced Pum-melo, looks like a flattened Grapefruit – usually very large, somewhat seedy (like Wheeny grapefruit) To flourish, they need very high numbers of heat units so they only grow well in the real tropics. Thailand has six cultivars covering the full year of cropping at maturity.

Citrus grandis decumana (a Pummelo selection of unknown origin)

It has no common name – butter yellow, the fruit is very small here now because you can see the (very low) bud union physiological incompatibility. Whilst I have inarched to save the tree and there are more suckers, so I can then put more inarches to separate limbs. You can see that the suckers have come from the rootstock indicating a (bud union) restriction and reducing the fruit size from head size when we first got it and now it’s a miserable specimen with very thick skin. A high 35cm budding or better still, grafting, would have solved this problem by producing a smooth union.

Pummelos are used extensively in Thailand and neighbouring tropical countries but they have many better cultivars than this one. They cut the skin in 1” strips, scrape away the white pith, soak the skin in a saturated sugar solution for 48 hours, The dried slices are chopped into 1” squares put on racks to dry and that’s their sweetmeat – their lollies! It’s very nice. This cultivar has a very distinctive, highly ribbed leaf. The Pummelos in general have large, very smooth leaves and a round shape.

Sheryl:  It tastes very mild and not at all tart.

Grapefruit 

This is Star Ruby – I imported the first lot in as seed from the US Citrus and Date Station at Weslaco in Texas. This is one of the original red grapefruit, products from   irradiation of Marsh Grapefruit. The yellow splotches on the leaves are the result of sunburn toxicity. In southern California on subsequent visits, I found they grow them under date trees and they don’t show this problem at all – they just don’t like direct sunlight and it’s a deficiency caused by genetic changes through the irradiation. Star Ruby is one of the best. Ray Ruby, Rio Red are other selections but they are all seedling selections from the original experiment.

Chironje (pronounced cheer–own-aa)

Sheryl:  This is fantastic – just superb.

Ian:  It’s a chance hybrid that’s been known in Puerto Rico for hundreds of years and was found in the forest by American botanical explorers in the 1800’s and sent to Washington and then to California. I’ve been growing it for 30 years and I still think it is one of the best of the non-mainline varieties. It holds its fruit on the tree, doesn’t granulate, keeps its juice and what you are eating is fruit from last year. It’s a cross between an Orange and a Grapefruit. The researchers in California have established that but their parents have been lost in antiquity. They haven’t been able to trace it in Puerto Rico other than to say that there are a whole lot of grapefruit and oranges around and there’s a mixture of everything but they can’t put it down to two in particular. The industry is now beginning to do DNA testing. If anyone is really interested then one could do something about identity in the future.

Limes

Palestine Sweet Lime

Taste is like Barley water, no acid. Used for generations as a rootstock in the Middle East until improved virus testing procedures put it out of contention. Grown on Troyer Citrange rootstock – A myth: some industry people keep on saying Troyer Citrange is different to Carrizo Citrange – they are both the same. Any differences are the result of seedling variation as they are not 100% genetically true-to-type. I have the US chart to confirm their true origin and I am happy to provide it.

Kusaie

The yellow fruited form (mutation) of Rangpur, and of Indian origin. It leaves Tahitian Lime for dead. Kusaie produces much smaller fruit year round (the fruit stays on the tree) whereas in temperate climates, the tropical Tahitian produces only one crop and then sheds it. 

Rangpur

A dark orange colour – larger fruit than Kusaie. It has a nipple on the bottom to identify the clone, and also crops year round. The reason I like them both is because they are hybrids and believed to have mandarin in their background. This gives them cold tolerance and the ability to react to changing conditions including shaping so that they can flower and fruit all year round. I think they make some of the best patio specimens and useful too.

Citrus hystrix

A prized fruit (very bumpy skin) in Thailand. The women have the most gorgeous black flowing hair. When their children go to school they can get lice in their hair. If you grate the fruit, it makes instant shampoo in water. It foams up, has a beautiful smell, kills the lice and keeps their hair in beautiful condition, as it is a natural insecticide. The leaves are used in infusions for tea etc. It depends where it is grown as to whether the leaves retain that strong characteristic. The tropics are the best climate. Some people kid themselves when they grow it in cool climates, do their infusions and think it is nice, but the reality is different.

Sheryl:   This is what we call Kaffir Lime? 

Ian:  Wrong name! There is no mention in any respected citrus journal of Kaffir. It is widely known in Asia as Makrut lime. I was repeatedly told that name over the four years I consulted in Thailand. 

Blood Lime  

It’s a CSIRO hybrid developed at Merbein, Victoria and patented. It has been made available to contracted growers only.

West Indian Lime   

It’s a little seedy but it’s the most acid lime that you can grow. It is propagated by seed, but it tends to suffer from Tristeza virus – my particular cultivar was selected for its resistance. If you don’t have a high aphid population, you can get away with growing it from seed.

Wild Tangerine? or Wild Lime?

Sheryl:  aaaaah!!!! very sour

Ian: I think it came from Indonesia many hundreds of years ago. It has a sharp lime flavour and is a good cropper. NT aborigines know about it – tends to be a little thorny but after a while you’ll notice in a few years, up at the top, some branches that are not too thorny. You can breed much of the thorniness out of citrus by using that observation. The further you are away from the original cell subdivision, the less thorns or juvenile vigour.  Just take thornless buds or a small thornless graft from the tip of the plant and grow it on for several years more and you’ll finish up with very few thorns.

Rootstock Issues

Ian: These trees are on Flying Dragon rootstock and they’re all budded or grafted to Marumi Cumquat.  We also use Flying Dragon as a rootstock for dwarfing trees in the field. It will tolerate a wide range of soil conditions even up to pH9 so long as there is very good drainage. In containers there is a need to stay in the range of pH5.5 – 6.5 to obtain the best nutrient availability. We have a Flying Dragon seed production planting in macropots. We use Flying Dragon rootstock for almost everything for home gardeners, providing we know the proposed budline is free of Exocortis viroid.

Sheryl:  It looks like Flying Dragon would be excellent as a bonsai. When wouldn’t you use Flying Dragon as a rootstock?

Ian:  Lemons – that’s the only one – the only compatible exception that is OK is Prior nucellar (means virus free) Lisbon.  It’s an American cultivar and we had two – Prior and Monroe. When I did the field testing on Monroe, after 10 years I found it had exocortus viroid and had to scrub it. There were no reliable heat treatment facilities at that time. I don’t like Swingle Citrumelo – it’s a terrible rootstock. From a home gardener’s point of view, if I said to you: Do you want something very vigorous, grows to 10 metres, produces coarse fruit and doesn’t like limey areas? No thanks! They use it in Florida because they have a decline problem called Citrus Blight. This rootstock is resistant and it’s the only way they can keep growing citrus in the affected areas. There is an area in the Burnett Valley in Qld. that’s in quarantine due to it being (illegally!) introduced to Australia on infected budwood so hopefully it will stay there. It is not yet possible to destroy the organism.

Pest management 

We use the systemic Confidor, mainly for Mealybug, once every 2-3 years. Ampol DC tron+ (sold in garden centres as PESTOIL) is by far the best and softest on beneficial insects and the operator as a regular maintenance for general insect pest control. Check out the label for more details.

Cumquats or Kumquats (either name is OK)

Marumi are much less vigorous than Nagami growing on the same rootstock. Nagami has a sharp sweet flavour and Marumi has a soft sweet flavour – there are oil cells in the outer skin of Nagami, but not on Marumi.

Meiwa – I was part of a working party in California in the 80’s to try and resolve the debate about the similarity of Meiwa and Marumi. Both were in the UCR station at Lindcove Field Station in northern California. It is a famous citrus repository from a worldwide point of view and this is documented and authenticated. A comprehensive range of experts in this field made a detailed assessment. It was decided, for all intents and purposes, Meiwa and Marumi were identical, so we adopted the name Marumi.  Any reading you see that quotes Meiwa is pre the1980’s. We have gone to the one name to save confusion. I have not seen any difference and I’ve worked in Thailand, South Africa, Malaysia and Indonesia where I’ve studied the cultivar as well. I’m quite convinced there is no difference.

Sunburn control

Sheryl:   When do you suggest painting the trunk?

Ian:    Use white (reflects the heat) water-based paint EARLY and apply it on all citrus. With Mangoes, don’t dilute. It will last around 5 years. Many trees show sunburn, characteristically a bronze colour on the western side of the trunk followed by excessive dead bark. Check the eastern (protected) side to observe the difference.

Israel

Ian:    Yes, I’ve been to Israel many times. I did learn a lot, as do most when travelling. eg In an irrigation experiment on 10 year old Plum trees, they got sheet piling (from the wharves) and divided the root systems on several acres for a random trial. They put the sheet piling down on each side of the trees – some of the roots were half roots, some quarter some three-quarter and some untouched. A drip irrigation system was fitted to the relevant sections of the new root systems.  The results were startling for the time, but there was no loss of production on the restricted root systems and that meant adequate water could be applied using drippers on a very small area and the tree would develop a root system to cope with those changes. We now know that drippers are effective water savers in applying water by avoiding evaporation losses and because of accuracy of application. If crop potential is pushed to the ultimate limit then there is no water saving there. We should adopt the Israeli term of “tonnes (of crop) per cubic metre of water” to better relate our overall use of our most precious resource. As far as growing in pots though, the Israeli’s grow a lot using nutrient film techniques – you put the plant in the tube – like hydroponics – but the proper term is nutrient film technique (NFT.) They do a lot of this as they are short of water and they developed some superb nutrients for specific use with NFT. ie. Liquid NPK in the 1960’s cost an arm and a leg – you could apply Urea but you couldn’t inject phosphorus or potassium. They developed chemical combinations for drippers that became soluble fertilisers for the industry worldwide.  Now they are in common usage and cost effective.

Publications

Sheryl:   Have you written many papers that we could access?

Ian:        I’ve written more than 60 papers about Horticulture. I’m currently trying to condense these onto a CD and in a book format. It will probably take around two years to complete as I need to revise and update every paper. I’ve written on rootstocks, the role of fertilisers and chemicals, how trees grow to name a few.  

Marcotting

Sheryl:    What plants wouldn’t you marcot?

Ian:       You have to decide first if they are going to go into a pot (OK) or in the ground. e.g. If you marcot Camellias there could be one in the Phytophthora range – pithium, rhizoctonia,  sclerotinia, ready to attack the sensitive bottom of the cutting. eg. In germinating citrus seeds, I am not interested in citrophthora or parasitica at that moment, I’m interested in pithium. The one that kills the Jarrah in WA is phytophthora cinnamomi, and Citrus are immune but there is a huge range of pathogenic fungi, I think I saw 600 species on one list.

Sheryl:   So you’re saying that the majority of marcots in a sub-tropical climate are only suitable for pots?    

Ian:       Yes, for citrus in SE Qld (sub-tropical) you have problems with Phytophthora parasitica right into the tropics. From Sydney down we don’t have parasitica as it’s too cold. Parasitica works year round in warm climates. If you get a cold snap, it will go dormant but it doesn’t happen very often. In the case of Citrophthora it will stay dormant in summer and then activate when soils cool down.

Avocado   

Ian:    We grow Bacon (early) Hass (mid-season) & Reed (late-season) in Renmark and can achieve eight months of harvesting.

pH & climate

Sheryl:    What’s your pH here – everything looks so healthy.

Ian:         pH8.5 – all of the upper areas of SA are alkaline almost without exception. I recently visited a nursery on the Blanchetown Plains (on Goyder’s Line halfway to Adelaide from here) that had a pH11 – we are in a hot, dry desert environment. Last year we got 125mm of rain, previous year was 110 and we’re supposed to get 250. We have not achieved our annual average for so long we don’t know what it’s like.

Bay Tree 

Can be used as a hedge plant or an indoor plant as it is easy to shape.

Grapes

There used to be a collection of 6,000 different vine species at the Viticultural Research Station, Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley. A new director came in and bulldozed most of them so they’re now back to 1500 – he was sacked after 2 years but the damage and loss was done. At Irymple near Mildura Boulevarde Nurseries have installed a $500,000 glasshouse where they propagate grape vines year round using a French method. Kathy Mullins is the Tissue Culture specialist. Peter Smith owner of Sunraysia Nurseries at Buronga, NSW (across the river from Mildura) is the specialist in the commercial side of Vine Improvement

Figs

Produce two crops. The spring crop comes from completed spurs at the end of the previous year’s growth. By pruning a proportion of long shoots back to, say, 10-20cm spurs in winter, new growth from the spur will produce an autumn crop. Smyrna is the main commercial variety in the world.  For it to be productive it needs to be fertilised with a Capri wasp. The Capri wasp is half the size of a tiny black ant that you can hardly see and lives in the Capri fig. Its cycle starts in there until the point where it emerges from a hole in the Capri fig base about a quarter of the size of a pin head. You place a wire basket on the windward side of each Smyrna tree and put one fig with emerging wasps in the basket– they’re very poor flyers. It’s only when the Smyrna fig base opens that the Capri wasp can go in and lay its eggs. So, every day, you pick another fig and put it in the basket over a period of some four weeks. Smyrna figs have one major crop unlike some of the other types – they are green almost translucent so that when you dry them you can almost see through the fig.

Take cuttings and put in sand to callous and place another pot on top to cut out the light. Most figs appreciate a hot dry summer so you may have problems. For a single tree pruned to contain it to a small size, try a plastic cover over summer harvest. The added heat will not be a problem. eg Marsa Matruh (Egypt’s major fig production area on the Libyan border,) regularly gets temperatures in the range of 40-50C in the summer harvest period! They would be great in pots espaliered where climate moderation is practical. Tony Stevens of Rare Fruit Society in Adelaide (ph: 08.8524 2192) is the Fig guru here and has a collection of some 60-90 cultivars. He could recommend a variety to suit.

Secateurs and budding/grafting knives.

We stock Italian Manaresi secateaurs and a range of left and right handed grafting and budding knives. I have used my own personal snips for 20years and they are still in good condition. They are OK for both left and right handed people also. They have two cutting edges, take much less muscle to operate and produce clean unbruised cuts. We use a standard (fine) Diamond hone to sharpen.

Budding Knife

It’s a myth that Grandpa’s old cowhide strop was a good sharpening tool. It bends and also applies extra pressure on the knife edge. I make Strops by request. Cowhide on a rigid board – smooth one side and nap on the other. If you drop your blade you can straighten the blade on the shiny side of the leather. After you’ve budded say 200 or so buds you can strop the blade on the nap side keeping the blade really sharp without the need for major sharpening and consequent wear. I threw out all my oilstones decades ago as they were seldom straight and they take off too much metal, so shortening the tool’s life. My left handed budding knife is 25 years old and still has the original curve at the tip – most people tell me they get 5 years of commercial use out of theirs. (using oilstones!) Never use a budding knife for cutting plastic because plastic is severe on a blade – just buy a cheap Stanley knife and keep breaking off the segments when they become blunt. I use the plastic end of that cutter to control the depth of cut when removing plastic budding ties and this avoids cutting the plant.

Citrus seed production

We have supplied high quality citrus seed to commercial nurserymen for more than thirty years. The seed is graded, heat treated for pathogen elimination, dried and dusted in Thiragranz (TMTD) prior to heat sealing in one litre HD plastic bags. To do the job we built a stainless steel unit that shreds the fruit separating the seed from the skins. A reciprocating stainless steel screen separates the seed from the pulp. The seed and mucilage is treated with hydrated lime and washed clean. We don’t dry the seed off completely – it’s a bit like giving birth – every ‘variety’ is so different. With Cleopatra mandarin (small seed) you could easily over dry it and then next year the time could be different! This year could be humid – I dry through a controlled Harvest Maid but the humidity I cannot control, so then I could have a problem.  This process still requires a professional touch. The label will give date of extraction, what tree the seeds came from, date, variety, what we treated it with, complete with perishable storage and planting instructions.

Ian propagates trees for the Rare Fruit Society of SA and has some 100 varieties of citrus trees for sale as well as propagation tools so if you want the rare, then write to him at PO Box 2 Renmark SA 5341 or fax: 08.8595 1780    email:   ist@riverland.net.au.

Article compiled by Sheryl Backhouse

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Calcium is increasingly recognised as a key to mango production in the Northern Territory for both yield and quality. Observation on yields indicates some of the low yields and fruit drop problems may be the result of low calcium levels and we are becoming more convinced that calcium is essential for good quality, particularly good skin colour. The evidence at the moment is only by observation. Recent research from Africa indicates that mangoes use a lot of calcium – 10 times that of phosphorus and magnesium.

Leading growers in North Queensland have long recognised the importance of calcium. Research by DPIF in the Northern Territory has indicated that growers’ opinion that calcium is important is possibly correct. Most Northern Territory soils including Katherine are very low in calcium – around one quarter of recommended levels. Soil levels should be at least 1000 ppm; most Northern Territory soils are only 250-300ppm.

Not only is the amount of calcium important but the ratio of calcium to magnesium. This should be at least 5:1 calcium to magnesium (expressed as meq/100g) The quality reports have shown the best coloured fruit come from orchards high in calcium, low in magnesium. Unfortunately many Top End soils including Katherine have ratios less than 2:1 (expressed as meq/100g).

Magnesium is present in many Northern Territory water supplies and for mangoes this is a problem. It makes fruit green and soft. The amount of calcium and magnesium in water supplies is variable so soil testing is crucial to get levels right. Test your soils to ensure you have at least 1000ppm calcium and your calcium:magnesium ratio is at least 5:1. NTHA provide a free interpretation service to members.

Calcium can be applied as lime, gypsum or dolomite. Dolomite generally is not recommended for mangoes as it is high in magnesium. Lime is used to increase pH and gypsum is used to increase calcium where pH is OK or high. Foliar sprays of calcium around flowering and fruit set have also been used to improve yield and quality. Current indications are that calcium should be applied at flowering (soil and foliar), after harvest (optional), and especially at the end of the wet season after the heavy rains to set the tree up for good calcium levels before flowering.

The amounts of lime or gypsum required on most Top End soils are large. The recommendations to date have generally been too low. They fail to take into account wet season leaching and the negative effects of high magnesium in most irrigation water. Mangoes appear to use a lot of calcium. Most growers have taken 2-3 years to get their calcium levels and their calcium:magnesium ratio right. Applications of 20kg/tree, three times a year for 2-3 years are not uncommon so get your soil tested. Leaf analysis can be used as a guide but can be misleading as calcium increases naturally as leaves age. It is important to realise that other elements also have to be corrected to get the maximum benefit.

Boron is essential for the best calcium response and should be applied at up to 50gms per mature tree. It is also important to have phosphorus, zinc and potassium levels right. The bottom line is get your soil tested. The best time to test soil (in Northern Territory) is December to February before the main time for application in March.

Note from Sheryl: Refer previous newsletters on talks by Peter Young and Robert Pulverenti

Robert says to only put on 5g per m2 per canopy and water in very well.

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My candle nut tree Aleurites moluccanais having a very good crop this year and a fellow told me to pick up this season’s nuts, dehusk and clean, then store in an onion bag tied up somewhere in good ventilation. When next season’s nuts start to fall, the previous ones are ready. I found this way they are easier to get whole and cling to the shell less. I doubt it lessens the effect on my stomach of eating more than 5 or 6 to go through quickly but they taste much better and the few people I have tried them on quite liked them. The nut is the official state tree of Hawaii but here the timber had many uses including canoe construction. A gum extracted from the plant was used to strengthen the tapa cloth they made. The timber is known as Indian Walnut.
Ref:  Stirling Macoboy’s book “Trees for Warm and Temperate Climates”

Authored by: 

Sourced from: 

Sub-Tropical Fruit Club of Qld. Inc Newsletter June – July 2007

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This is the title of a tiny book which was first published in England in 1885 and was still in print in facsimile in 1992.  Sheryl has loaned me this 30¢ book sale bargain and asked for some comments. The author, Vincent Holt, presented a case for being much more adventurous in our use of animal-derived foods and offered many precedents for adding “clean-feeding” insects, such as caterpillars, to our diet. He regarded the scavenging-type feeding habits of some of our more normal sources of food  such as lobster, eel and pork, as being much less savoury than those of plant-feeding insects.  He did, however, caution against using insects that feed on poisonous plants.  There is also the consideration that some insects may contain or carry pathogenic organisms which may be harmful or allergenic to humans, or insecticide residues, depending on the circumstances of collection.

Insects that Holt listed as being part of normal diets in non-British societies included locusts/grasshoppers, palm weevils, meal worms, crickets, chafer beetles, toasted moths, the chrysalides of Chinese silkworms, and the larvae of longicorn beetles.  He also mentioned the former use in British folk-medicine of such insects as ladybirds (for colic and measles) woodlice (aperient) and cockchafers (for the plague).  Other insects that had been used elsewhere as food included scale insects, dragonflies, termites, cicadas and caterpillars of butterflies.

A more up-to-date and fact-filled review of some nutritional and economic aspects of “Insects as Human Food” by Gene de Foliart was published in Crop Protection (1992), Vol.11 pp.395-399, and can be downloaded from the internet at:

http://www.food-insects.com/Insects%20as%20Human%20Food.htm

Some general points about choosing insects as foods:

• There are somewhere between a million and ten million species of insect in the world, with a high but unknown proportion of them still to be recognised, described and named.  Perhaps 1500 species have been recognised as edible and these are mostly used in tropical countries where insect diversity is very high and the availability of nutritious foods is sometimes limited.
• It is useful to check which insects were used as food (but not medicine) by local aboriginal people and how they prepared them, eg. bogong moths and their larvae. An informative article on this subject by Cherry can be found at http://www.insects.org/ced1/aust_abor.html
• Cooking is recommended for most insects being used in modern cuisine as novel foods or garnishes, e.g. fried grasshoppers and fried bee pupae. 

Many common foods, such as flours, cereals, fresh and frozen vegetables, and fresh and dried fruits, can contain a few small insects or larvae (dead or alive) insect parts and/or droppings, which we normally consume without noticing. Fruit fly larvae, perhaps?The nutritive and caloric value of some edible insects can be similar to that of plant or animal-derived foods, but of course varies depending on the species and the part consumed – e.g. whether the chitinous exterior is removed. Insects such as termites and caterpillars, locusts and ants which have been eaten in quantity in some traditional cultures can provide extra nutrients such as proteins and fats to what is sometimes a rather limited range of foods.

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This is a method of inoculating your plants with beneficial fungi. You can make your own from your own local soil. The soil that you make will be rich in beneficial fungi. This will be the ‘inoculum’. It takes about an hour or less to set up and is very simple to maintain.

What are mycorrhiza?

Mycorrhizal fungi are a group of soil fungi that infect the roots of most plants. The fungi is not a pest or parasite as it supplies the plant with nutrients like phosphorus, copper and zinc, as well as increasing water availability. The plant supports the fungus with carbon in the form of sugars. This symbiotic relationship does not affect the plants, as they produce excess carbon. In fact, lack of water and nutrients is more often the limiting factor to plants’ growth and establishment. Mycorrhizal fungi are found in most environments, although their importance is greater in more extreme environments, where nutrients and water may be limited. There are very few plants that do not form mycorrhizal associations at all, although most can grow without it. In plants that have been infected by mycorrhizal fungi, the fungus is actually the chief method of nutrient uptake, not the roots.

There are several types of mycorrhiza, the type that we are interested in are by far the most common and are called arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM). This type of mycorrhiza is invisible to the naked eye but forms a fine mesh through the soil. They enter the cells of the roots where they form branched arbuscles within these cells, this is where the exchange of nutrients and carbon occurs.

How do you know if a plant species can be a host to this type of fungus?
The vast majority of plants do form AM. This includes the majority of domestic and wild plants. However some species do not form this association, these include pines, firs, spruce and oaks. It would be impossible to list all the species and their mycorrhizal associations, so if you are in any doubt then contact us and we can confirm if this species will benefit from the inoculation method.

Results that you can expect
The most notable improvement should be an increase in survival rate. It has been shown that mycorrhizal plants cope better with stresses such as dry conditions and disease than non-mycorrhizal plants. Depending on your conditions and the species that you are using you may also notice an increase in growth. This is due to the plant accessing more phosphorus from the soil (this varies from just a few percent to double the normal growth). There are other benefits that mycorrhiza can bring to the soil. Its fine structure helps stabilise the soil structure, slowing both sheet and subsurface erosion. Under the soil, invisible from above, a network of fungal hyphae will start to spread from your plant, gradually colonizing other plants and in effect starting to rebuild a healthy ecosystem. The underground structure is the key part of restoring the ecosystem. The plants then act as fertility islands, with increased organic matter, better soil nutrient levels and with increased nutrient cycling.

Collecting your “Starter Soil”

Materials needed: spade, sacks and/or wheelbarrow to move soil.

Where? Around 80% of vegetation forms mycorrhizal associations. The infected plant roots and the spores and hyphae of the beneficial fungi are in the soil and can colonize new plants. You can be pretty sure of getting a good starter soil from any undisturbed area containing native vegetation including most grown trees, woody shrubs and perennial grasses. The best place to collect your starter soil is from under local native vegetation that is growing well in an area that has not recently been cultivated. It is good if you can collect some of the soil from under the same species as that on which you plan to use the mycorrhizal inoculum

 (i.e. your tree, shrub or crop species).

Method: Clear away about 0.5m2 of the vegetation underneath your target plant. Dig down to a depth of about 25cm collecting the soil and as many fine roots as possible. It is better, but not essential, to collect from under several different trees and shrubs. With stony soil it is best to sieve it to get rid of large stones.

2. Multiplying the mycorrhiza

To multiply the mycorrhiza from your starter soil we use a ‘trap-pot or ‘trap-trough’’. This method grows mycorrhizal dependent annuals in the collected soil. These plants, often called “bait plants”, will become infected with the mycorrhizal fungus causing the fungal population to multiply. Often two bait plant species are grown together to enhance different mycorrhizal fungal species multiplication. One of these will be a species of graminacae or allium, and the second will be a species of legume. Examples of these species are shown in the table below. Combining maize and beans, for example, is a good choice as they grow well together. It depends, however, on what you know to grow well in your area and on what you have available.

Select Species 1	Select Species 2
Graminacae	Allium species	Leguminacae species
Maize	Leeks	Alfalfa
Millet	Onions	Beans
Sorghum	–	Clover
Wheat	–	Peas
Oats	–	Lentils

Materials needed:

spade, plastic sacks/pots (5 litres or larger), seeds of your two selected species, water.

Where?

The best place is in a site that will not be needed for at least three months and where you can keep an eye on it. It will need regular watering, adequate light and protection from herbivores.

Method:

Take your starter soil to the site you have chosen and then either fill one or several plastic pots/basins (depending on how much inoculum you need). Alternatively, a trench can be dug into the ground and lined with the plastic sacks or other material available. This is what we call a ‘trap-trough’. The pit should be dug about 100cm x 50cm to a depth of 50cm and then lined with the plastic sacks. Plastic sheeting, bin liners or sugar sacks will be fine. Perforate the plastic to allow for drainage. Make sure that it covers the whole basin with an overlap. Place stones on the overlap and fill the trough with the soil. Soak the seeds of your two chosen species overnight. Plant them closer than normal, alternating the species.

Note: the soil that you dig out of the trench can be used to fill in the holes where you extracted soil from under the local vegetation.

How much inoculum do you want to make?

This depends on what size container you will be planting in, but estimate about 1/6 of each pot to be filled with the inoculum. If using on crops see ‘inoculating crops’ below.

3. Maintaining your trap-pots or trough
Once you have set up your trap-pot or trough you can more or less forget about it. Just keep it regularly watered. In this time the roots of the bait plants will be developing and forming the association with the mycorrhiza. Depending on the season you might need to shade it or protect it from frost. If growing trap-pots then they can be moved into a more sheltered area.

4. Three months later…

Ten days before you are ready to use the inoculum, the bait plants should be cut at the base of their stem and watering should be stopped. This kills the plant, and tricks the fungus into producing reproductive spores. Then, after the ten days, the inoculum is prepared by pulling up the roots of the bait plants which should be chopped into roughly 1cm pieces and then mixed back into the soil from the trap-pot or trough. This mixture of roots and soil is the inoculum.

5. Using the inoculum

The inoculum can be used on a wide range of different trees, shrubs, crops and garden plants. In all cases the plants should be given the same care as normal. A small amount of compost will complement the addition of mycorrhiza but no artificial fertilizers or herbicides should be added.

Inoculating trees, growing them from seed:

Materials needed: inoculum, seeds, growing tubes or plant pots, soil, compost.

Method:  Two thirds of the pot or growing tube should be filled with normal soil, with a little compost mixed in, if available. Then add a layer of inoculum and finally another layer of normal soil into which the seed is sown. The inoculum layer need only be a couple of centimetres deep. This means that when the roots grow down the tube they will come into contact with the fungus, and quickly become infected. The trees are then cared for as usual, and planted out at the same time as normal, to coincide with the growing season. The trees that have been infected with the fungus should be much better equipped to cope with shortages in rainfall, and will also improve the mycorrhizal potential of the surrounding soil.

Inoculating pre-grown trees:

Materials needed: inoculum, trees, spade.

Method: dig the hole where you will plant your tree and throw in a spade-full of the inoculum. Place the sapling in the hole and sprinkle a little more of the inoculum around the edges as you fill it in. If you are adding compost then dig the hole slightly deeper, add the compost, cover over with normal soil and then add the spade-full of inoculum.

Inoculating crops:
Method: Put a pinch of inoculum into any hole that you are about to plant into. Or mix a couple of handfuls of the inoculum with seeds that you are about to sow and plant as usual. If transplanting then soak the root ball in water and then dip in the inoculum. The root ball will then have a coating of inoculum. Plant as normal.

When you have used as much of the inoculum as you need, the trap-pot or trough can be topped up again with more starter soil, re-planted with bait plants and the cycle repeated. This ensures that there is a ready supply of inoculum all through the year.

The trap-pot or trough needs to be set up three months in advance of your scheduled planting in order for the mycorrhizal population to fully mature.

A word of caution:  It is possible that you might accidentally cultivate pathogens rather than beneficial organisms. Be observant and choose soil carefully!!