Oh Yeah those are the "Pike" sapote, it needs a friend (I used Ortega)

Thanks for the photos nicefrog...I'm jealous, but my white sapote is just a wee fella

I keep hearing so much about the white sapote, but this is th first time I have seen a picture of the fruit. What do they taste like?

Eamon, they taste somewhere between a Banana smoothie, a Carmel flan, or perhaps a Lemon Banana smoothie, or a rockmelon/ banana smoothie even sometimes a Lychee/milk/agar drink you can buy in Asian shops. Depending on the tree where it's grown and how cold the fruit was when you ate it, lots of factors involed :! Infact I don't think I've ever tasted two fruit from the same tree that tasted exactly the same.

Anyway you look at it they are a good fruit, easily comparable to say a Peach on the good tasting fruit scale and going up from there

Okay, I'm sold. Hope they like Armidale winters!!!

They do sound nice. And they seem to like frost. Hmm...

spatz and ray

they dont handle frosts too well when they are small, so they require protection from frost for the first couple of years. They usually grow in a forest and are protected by the adult trees around them. I have covered mine in hay, until I am sure that there will be no frosts. Mine is looking quite yellow after the 20cm of snow we had on thursday.

helen

Thanks for that Helen. Sounds like they'd be worth a try given a sunny but sheltered spot.
Ray

Right near the laundry Ray. We're getting one, yesterday.

Just looked at Daley's web site for white sapote. Anyone know anything about the varieties listed there?

I recall Nicefrog recommending Pike, but perhaps that was just for Melbourne - I'll let him elaborate.

It seems Daleys is out of the named varieties but have seedlings. Is it worth growing a seedling? and is it easy enough to grow from seed?

Pike is mind bendingly good in a cold climate (they say it's bitter but it's not for me, so I guess the cooler climate helps with that) but it's probably the worst tasting variety and it only flowers once a year and it doesn't grow very fast as far as White Sapotes go or fruit quickly. Vernon is the one I would recommend anyone to start with. It will fruit in two years grows fast, flowers at least twice a year even in Southern Victoria and tastes better than Pike. There are more Varieties that taste better than Vernon but for now try and get a Vernon. Lemon Gold and Golden globe are perhaps the same Variety in Australia or at least mixed up and only one grows properly in the cooler areas. Many white sapotes have alot of wolly leaf sapotes genes in them and they are more tropical=bad for Victoria/Tasmania.

Pepino with heat a sapote seed will be up and out of the ground in about 10 days, Ive never had one not germinate but you could wait 7-????????? years for fruit, they say 50% of seedlings will be good eating, 25% not so good and 25% somewhat infertile (I think that's about right). They are also easy to graft. Seedlings grow very fast and straight up, I have one about 15? 18? feet tall and with a trunk about 3 inches thick at the base, at the moemnt it looks like a truffula tree from Dr Suess's the Lorax :p I expect it will thicken up and branch out a bit one day.

Vernon can take -5c without damage. Most of them are about that hardy some a little more some a little less. My garden saw -2.5c this Winter while the Pike was loaded with ripe and almost ripe fruit and I had no damage to the leaves or fruit. Rainbow is about the best variety you can get in Australia or anywhere, I don't think you will ever see one for sale in Australia and I don't have it, yet...... but it is in Australia. Reinecke Commercial is also one of the best and easy to get hold of, it has an almost orange fruit but takes looooooooong to fruit (4 or 5 years from graft on the South coast of Vic). They grow in the mountains in Mexico in and around the Pine tree line up high on the slopes (1000-2500 meters or so), you can also find them down a bit lower but not in the actual tropics, The biggest one I saw in Mexico was 60x60 feet with a trunk over a meter thick adn was growing ontop of a grave that was 50 something years old, so I'm guessing the tree was 50 years old. In Mexico on day of the dead relatives place your favorite food/fruits on your grave so you get alot of fruit trees growing in cemetaries (mostly White Sapotes and Cherimoyas since they are the best two fruits going for cool mountain climates)

Thanks, Nicefrog. Will copy your list and see what I can get. Sounds like great stuff and I'm keen to try a variety or two. That trip to the fruit & nut tree nursery will have to be pretty soon now, I'm sure. :)

Yes, thanks nicefrog. Notes taken. It's off to source a white sapote!