The stage of flowers you are describing are females and you will not see pollen at this point. The flowers do not turn into males with pollen until the flower is completely open. There is no mistaking which phase the flower is in because the pollen will be noticeable. You must collect the pollen at this point. I have an old 35mm film canister that I put the pollen in. It's small and easy to see the pollen inside. Gently snip off the flower by the stem with your fingernails and again, gently shake the flower over the canister. I then grasp the stem with one hand and the petals with the other (all 3 together). I then twist the stem around inside the petals trying to shed every bit of the stamens and pollen into the canister. Now you have some pollen. It is probably good stored in the fridge for maybe 24 hours. Tapping the canister quit a bit will help release pollen. I also take my little paint brush and swirl around and bang it inside the canister. You can definitely see where pollen has been released. The females are opened a bit. There's an old post on cherimoya pollinating by Eggo you can find if you do a search. It has excellent pics of the flower stages. The only thing I do different when pollinating the female flowers is to remove all of the petals first...where Eggo just clipped a single petal so he would know that the flower had been pollinated. I read in a publication that removing the petals on sugar apples is better and there's no mistaking which ones have been visited. I then make sure I get plenty on the brush and then remove the petals from the female. Swirl and roll the brush onto the remaining flower parts...holding the canister below to catch any pollen that drops from the brush. I treated the pollen like gold dust!! I believe there are certain stages of female that are more receptive than others...the flower is separated a bit more but no where close to opening fully. Same for the males. If you wait until the flower starts to turn a little brown, I don't believe the pollen is as viable...or it has been released already and is gone. I've noticed plenty of pollen and stamens resting on leaves below older males. You have to be on the ball in this game as well. Most publications state that it is best to collect during a certain time and to pollinate during a certain time. This may be true in general but I've found that the flowers usually advanced to different stages on their own terms. I would try to collect pollen and if possible, pollinate any females I could every morning before going to work, after work, and before bed. If I was home all day, I would constantly be on the lookout. The males are sneaky buggers! You can miss one hanging right in front of your nose! The first two years mine started flowering was a very harsh learning curve for me. The trees didn't produce many flowers and I was just not getting the timing down. But repeated readings of publications and Eggo's write-up, AND crap-loads of flowers this year, I was able to get it down pretty good. Don't get frustrated. Have fun with it but pay attention to what works and what doesn't. It will pay off in the end.

phase, I'm only growing the emperor variety for now. i do know of a brewster and mauritious that grows a few miles from me. I do nothing special with the emperor variety at all. It seems to bloom and consistent fruit for the last couple of years, but definitely fruits heavier every other year. $8.97? ouch! hhaha Ethan, you're more than welcome to drop by if your in the area. yeh my bad Jay I've been lagging on my part about sending out those cuttings. There isn't what I would call suitable branches to send out right now, but I will get some out to you later this year along with some extra fruits. jambus Jay! Looks like it will be ripen in the next week or so. I had two trees going pre 2006, one got killed, this one survived due to being sheltered by the side of the house. close up strange angle. I hope to one day be able to look up into a large tree and see this. =)

John, all three are graft compatible on the same rootstock. I've tried grafting sugar apples onto my large cherimoya tree before but it was difficult due to the different stem size, sugar apples have much smaller stems. I wouldn't recommend a cherimoya in your greenhouse if its going to be very hot and humid. They don't do too well in hot and humid climates, it's worth a try but you may expect to have some pest and disease problems. Atemoya and sugar apples would be more suitable for a tropical greenhouse.

Finally found the Crystal Light Sunrise orange drink last week. It is good, but a little sweet for my taste, I like it made very weak. Really prefer the Raspberry Lemonade flavor. A friend said she knows someone that can get it by the case, which is cheaper. We may go in together and get a case of it. Don't get me wrong, I don't drink it like water. One little tub made up can last me several days. I used to be totally against all diet beverages and didn't like the aftertaste they left in my mouth. But I've found I can tolerate the CL made very weak and it is a nice change from plain water.