Patusho,

Cool news on your SA. Did your Giant come from a fruit you bought at the market or from a nursery? My Golden SA is in about the same boat. 3' tall. It's had 4 fruit, I thinned all but one off. I'm only doing it so I'll have seeds. I'll plant them and grow seedlings, since its a newer variety. I would argue against fertilization causing flowering and fruit since usually that would cause vegetative growth, usually at the expense of flowering and fruit. Always exceptions to everything though.

Gary

That's great news. My Sugar Apples (Green and Mauve) don't even have leaves yet this year. They are taking quit a long time but I hope this month will be the start.

Good luck with your annonas Patusho

Bena Suerte

Gary, I got the seeds from a trading but did see and picture of the fruit but it didn´t seem that giant to myself (compared with the ones around here). lol perhaps they´re really big but the picture didn´t show the actual size correctly.

Racor, I got one grafted atemoya fruit tree (1m tall) in the ground neaar Chula Vista, CA which flowers but doesn´t set any fruit, it seems very healthy down there.

Patusho, are those giant atis the ones from Brazil? I seen pictures of a type there that produce huge fruits, not quite the size of a large white cherimoya variety but it was almost there, larger than anything I seen before in Asia. I had some seeds that I got a couple years ago but never really got to plant them out until this year. They all sprouted nicely.

that´s right, eggo, from Brazil; have no idea how large White cherimoya gets, though.

last autumn got some wild ilama seeds (got the fresh fruit) and they never sprouted! %&$%&·$% later knew they must be stored a few months before sown or harvest them a little before they ripen on the tree or something like that.

Patusho,

If you want that Atemoya to set fruit, you have to hand pollinate it. Otherwise, it probably won't set many fruits on its own. My Gefner Atemoya has a few already which I hand pollinated. None on its own so far.

Racor, how many flowers did your atemoya have at one time? It seems once they get big enough to have a lot of flowers at once, self pollination increases. That was also the case with my sugar apples.

Gary

Gary,

My tree usually has about 5 or 6 males and females open at one time so I have plenty to perform hand pollination. Here in Califonia its too dry and we do not have beetles that pollinate. Every once in a while, some may get pollinated naturally but the fruit becomes diformed.

There are quite a few flowers right now on the tree and I have left some to be naturally pollinated but its a gamble so I rather do it my self and get good size fruits.

thanks Racor for the advice; the atemoya still very young and even if it holds a fruit I´d pinch it off. But next year would consider hand pollination.

Cheers.

Patusho, I heard the same thing about ilama. Its so odd that it supposedly needs to stored for quite some time before they will germinate. I once got seeds of some that were stored for about a year, all of the ones I tried germinated so it appears to be true. I tried my first grafts of these seedlings onto my largest cherimoya this year, hopefully the graft takes.

The pictures of the fruit I seen from Brazil looked huge, like about twice the size a regular sweetsop. White cherimoyas get to about 2 to 2 1/2 lbs per fruit.

Neither cherimoyas, sugar apples, or atemoyas will self pollinate sufficiently here. There are a few micro climates out here that will do the job.

racor, can you explain how you hand pollinate atemoya? i planted geffner and african pride and i wish to know how to pollinate them. we have the same environment and that is a dry area. thanks

berns

Berns,

It is rather easy to hand pollinate Cherimoyas and Atemoyas. Just follow the instuctions posted by Eggo in tthe link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cherimoya hand pollination

Hi all,

I still can not recognize a male flower. I collected pollen but ended up with tiny anthens. I just bought 2 new cherimoya trees.
The flower started to open 2 days ago. This morning it opened just like in Eggo's picture. Do I need to see the anthens a little curly? Losened up? Where do I see the pollen? Can I see with a special glass?

Thanks.