Che fruit

I ordered 2 Che Trees from demoeribeiboom and got them a few weeks ago.

Based on Dithmar´s reply i picked one seedless (female) and one male

“I don’t know if seedless Che will work in Austria because it
needs a long hot summer. The berries might drop before they ripen. If you
do decide to try it I would recommend planting a male tree along with it.
This will make the fruit ripen earlier and prevent fruit drop.”

Do you have a similiar expierence?

I really hope they ripen here in zone 7, Austria!

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Ditto what castanea said…
I have a friend on the MS/LA line who’s seen Che on its own roots… said it made an impenetrable thorny suckering thicket that you’d have to have a bulldozer to get through. Makes me think that it’s best to keep it as a graft on Maclura pomifera understock.

The following missive was penned by my friend Richard Moyer, back in 1999, when they were living in the KingsportTN/BristolVA area:

We have had Che fruit in for 7 years. Put in both a male and female plant. Survived 14 below several winters ago. Blooms after frost; has not frozen out in five or so years (am away from my notes), unlike our mulberry. No observed disease or insect problems. Birds are a problem, have netted the female. Disease and insect resistance similar here to mulberry and fig, which are in same family (Moraceae).

Pollination is the adventure with this plant:
The male sets fruit but most of these fall off; a few of them will ripen and be identical to female fruit. Male died to ground two winters ago; the female still set a full crop of seedless fruit. The male grew back last year, bloomed this year and acted like a female by setting the largest crop of ripening fruit yet. (It may be in the process of some type of gender conversion; time will tell.) Some debate has gone on for the need of a male pollinator. I’m not sure that I had any less fruit without the male two years ago. Our plants are on the far side of the field and hence do not merit close observation; my kids eat most of the fruit with the birds.

Both our plants are grafted onto Osage Orange. Hence, if you know how Osage Orange does on yours or similar land, this should suffice for your site. A.J. Bullard let a single stem go up to 8-9 ft, and cuts all others off, he has a nice form as the result. A number of our limbs on our bush are on the ground.

Hidden Springs grafts theirs onto Osage Orange if I recall correctly; they do not grow seedling trees of Che. If you mean they graft an unnamed “seedling”, they then are no different from any other nursery, to my knowledge. Don’t know of anyone who has selected and named superior cultivars from the wild (somewhere in China?) My impression of the one nursery that sells a ‘seedless’ selection is that this if merely a female. My sample size is too small to determine the value of two for pollination vs. one female.

We are at 1800’ zone 6, we rarely get into the 90s; we are on the borderline for enough heat to ripen Che fruit. In a cool summer, defoliation in fall will occur before last of fruit is ripe.
Ripe fruit has a strawberry color, knotty exterior like Osage Orange, tastes a bit like pear and fig to us; sweet but not overly so. Strange in that slightly unripe fruit leaves a metallic taste in my mouth.

In summary, an overlooked minor fruit. Well worth the effort to put in as a carefree, dependable producer in our area. The Blacks at Hidden Springs have made a jam with them.

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Perfect. And I was offered scionwood this morning with an ongoing trade I’m in. Lots of Osage orange surround me. I think it’s going to do well here.

Thank you so much, guys.

Dax

I got one che fruit this year, the first fruit on my tree in 12 years. It was extremely late ripening. If having a male gets them ripening earlier I would go for it. The fruit taste was unexciting to me, no acidity. I will probably remove the tree this winter.

I taste a che fruit about once very 4 or 5 years to see if they have improved or my tastes have changed. Nope. Possibly the most forgettable fruit I have ever tasted. I kept one tree because it’s such a pretty ornamental and a very tough tree, but I have so many root suckers that I may pull it out anyway. Nothing will eat the fruit here, not birds, squirrels, turkeys, skunks, possums, coyotes, pheasants or humans or anything else.

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I’d be interested in some of the root suckers, tired of my grafted ones turning to osage orange trees.

I’m sure I could dig some up. I don’t think they can be killed by anything except kryptonite

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Well, I’m going to give it a try guys. I like sweet flavors and watermelon/fig sounds like something I would desire. There are Osage Orange growing everywhere here. I’ll get wood established on a large tree and then graft it to a seedling later.

Much obliged for your thoughts.

Dax

I also love sweet and strange fruits :smiley:

Here is my favourite fruit ranking atm:

  1. PawPaws
  2. Guanabanas
  3. Cherimoyas
  4. Persimmons (Non Astringent varieties, though i really like astringents too if they have been ripened properly)
  5. Mulberries
  6. Pink Guavas
  7. Quinces
  8. Jujubes
  9. Durians
  10. Medlars

Maybe the Che will kick the Pink Guava from my list :3

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I just found pictures of a CHE Tree + fruits which is in Praha, Czech Republic.

Seems like i will be able to get them to ripen in our climate! :grin:




and

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Nice list Austro!

I haven’t tried anything on that except pawpaws, persimmons, and mulberries. I looked up Guanabanas, Cheimoyas and they’re custard fruits like pawpaws. Please tell me more!

Pink guavas I see for sale on Amazon.

Qunces, jujubes… I know of.

Durians look ‘crazy’ too! cool

I should’ve bought them when my local walmart had rhambutans… but they were too strange-looking for my dumb self. How do these taste? I regret not buying them now.

Dax

Hey!

Imo, they taste like that:

Cherimoya: Like a strawberry x milk dessert with cinnamon added … it has a gritty like flesh.
I like the smooth texture and the taste of the PawPaw more!

Guanabana: Similar but a bit more “fresh” (Sour-sop)

Pink Guavas: I just love the floral-fresh taste of them … seeds are bit annoying though (Dont bite too strong it will hurt your teeth)

Durian: They are like a mixed combination of tropical fruits and taste like Onions+Banana+Butter+Sugar

Smell is also onion like mixed with rotten fruits.
Better said: A Onion + Fruit Compost Smell.
Thats why many people dont like the fruit …i showed it to some and they didnt even want to try it because it triggered their gag reflex ^^

Rambutans: They are like Lychee but not as sweet.

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Thanks so much for the ‘experience’ Austro.

Very best regards,

Dax

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I’ve only had Che fruit from the tree at Emma Prusch Park in San Jose. The 4/5 of us all agreed it had a mild watermelon flavor and everyone ate it. I’m surprised at all the negative comments didn’t find it too bad at all, would eat again.

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an Austrian who likes durian-- you can’t get more cosmopolitan than that!
really curious, how much does a lb or kg of durian cost over there? Must cost a pretty penny!

sad that the omega 3 rich-seeds have to be crunched to avail of the omega 3’s.

If your list were 100 fruits long, che would not knock any of them off that list. The word most commonly associated with che fruit is “insipid”.

looks like i will have to follow @KlecknerOasis ’ lead and beg for one or two of your suckers.
here in vegas, there’s a scarcity of fruit trees with clark kent’s tenacity and vigor. Will gladly pay for postage and add 25$ more if your suckers are che’s, as growing che’s on their own roots sounds irresistible to me.

Here’s how che fruit tasting goes- Most people say it’s OK or even good when they first taste it. They eat one or two and say they will eat more the next year. The next year they eat one and say it’s OK. By the third year they don’t eat them anymore. The Chinese consider che fruit to be “unwholesome”. When I visited the Nanjing Botanical Gardens many years ago I asked to see their che fruit. They thought I was crazy (I had only been growing che for a year or two at that point). They thought the fruit was disgusting and would not waste space on a tree. They do have a few named cultivars in China but I have never found anyone in China who ate them. Here in California nothing will eat my che fruit. Birds will not eat it (you will find that in some places birds will eat it but will also find online reports that birds will not eat it in other places). No animals will eat it and bugs don’t bother it either. I suspect that despite it’s sweetness and pretty red color, che is not as far removed from osage orange as we think it is.

I just joined here so I don’t know how messaging works but I’ll be glad to send you some roots if you give me your address.

Where are the white sapotes?