re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates

My lab decided that she doesn't like the banana pups. I dont mind her clearing out some of the small ones but if she starts to like them too much I'm going to have to put a hot wire up around them.

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What if I wanna add a non late season variety that’s good in container.

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We need to just have a running list of container friendly mangos so that those interested can just research them all. Here's my attempt:

Pickering
Nam Doc Mai #4
Honey kiss
Little gem
Cecilove
Cogshall
Carrie
Ice cream
M-4
Julie
Mallika
Dwarf Hawaiian
Zill 40-26

I'm not saying these are all equal, just that all are compact enough for container growing. For my money, the best ones on this list are Pickering, dwarf Hawaiian, little gem, honey kiss, and Cecilove.

Not tropical but picked my first two peaches of the year. Only about 15 on the tree after that late frost nipped them.



My Starfruit has started growing like crazy. About 6" of new growth over the past couple of weeks.



Should I remove this tape covering the graft at some point or will it come off itself?




I'm jealous of the paw paw trees y'all have. Im holding off until next year before I get some. I already cut down my mayhaw tree to make room.

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Should I remove this tape covering the graft at some point or will it come off itself?

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I typically leave it. At some point it will turn black in color and as the graft union grows it will expand and shred the Buddy Tape. The only time I get concerned is if the grafting tape is physically in the graft union or in the rare instance that it’s girdling the tree.

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I'm not saying these are all equal, just that all are compact enough for container growing. For my money, the best ones on this list are Pickering, dwarf Hawaiian, little gem, honey kiss, and Cecilove.

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for ability to grow/control or for flavor profile?

Any suggestions on where I can buy the fruits on your list from one vendor this year?

I wanna see what I enjoy to eat the most and maybe I'll switch things around or add more.

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for ability to grow/control or for flavor profile?

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They are all either dwarf or semi-dwarf, so control won't be an issue. They are all excellent tasting mangos. The main issue for us in south Louisiana is going to be the mango diseases: anthracnose, powdery mildew, and black spot. You can pull each one of these up on the tropical acres website and read about disease resistance. The more disease susceptible, the more you will have to spray. They are all also not equally productive. Ice cream for example is a notoriously poor producer.

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Any suggestions on where I can buy the fruits on your list from one vendor this year?

I wanna see what I enjoy to eat the most and maybe I'll switch things around or add more.

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Difficult to buy the individual fruits most of the time. Sometimes Backyard Mangos will allow variety selection. My plan would be to buy early, middle, and late season mixed boxes from Tropical Acres.

Bro! That's a flag leaf with flower. Not only that, you have enough time for the rack to ripen before it gets too cold! 6+ months! Did you protect them this winter???

You need to water and feed like crazy. Lots of potassium.

Damn I'm jealous. The only one that made it here was the rajapuri I protected and no sign of a flag leaf yet.

Also your pitaya trellis is legit. Respect the dedication.

Meiwa kumquat is such an awesome citrus. Excellent flavor. Does fantastic in containers. Super cold hardy. I'm still picking fruit while it's getting ready to bloom again. Getting 2 crops per year on my potted tree.


Pawpaw Shenandoah graft is finally starting to take off. Not weakly pushing anymore. It's off the the races. Will cut years off the wait for fruit on this seedling tree.

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little gem seems to be the winner.

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Hard to find in FL right now. M-4 sort of stole it’s thunder. Look for a 3g or perhaps a 7g. That’s all you are likely to find. For real; I’m relatively well connected and struggled to get the one I got a week ago. Fantastic disease resistance and makes a somewhat smaller; but, very enjoyable mango. Little Gem is legit.

We’re experiencing all sorts of issues now. Trees are in short supply. The freeze killed many of the trees producing bud wood. Avocados may be next. The recent freeze killed off much of the Mexican varieties in Central Florida.

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I hit it with 8-8-8 back in March, will that work or do I need to get something more specific?

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Does the tree have any leaves left? I think I see 3 leaves and maybe 1 pup. Once the flower emerges leaves are done so it can only photosynthesize with what leaves are currently there. If you've got some leaves or if there are pups with leaves, I would go with something high in potassium and medium on nitrogen. If you don't have many leaves at all I would go low nitrogen and high potassium. In any event you want more K and more water. Bananas chew up fertilizer so it will be hard to harm it with anything other than 0-0-60 potash. It would also be fine to just take your 8-8-8 and double the application but an ideal banana ratio is 15-5-30. If there are more than 4 leaves I might consider cutting pups out to focus energy on the rack, leaving only the smallest pup for the next generation.