I’ve got a grafted 3-4 year old Cherimoya tree (w/ Fino de Jete and El Bumpo). Fino is flowering, but El Bumpo isn’t. Both grafts have taken well and are growing. However, the rootstock (Cumbe) is also a part of the party. It’s growing from the Bumpo grafted side. Cumbe is growing the best of the 3, too. I wanted to get some opinions on if I should keep the rootstock variety going, or if it’ll inevitably take over and kill the grafts? Are cherimoya fruit from a seed not as good as grafted? Any help on the approach would be great!
Interested in this as well. My 7-year-old daughter spat out her cherimoya seeds into a cup 5 years ago, and I put some soil on top of them for fun. Three weeks later, about 5 plants sprouted, so I put them in our (rental house’s) garden in LA. Now, in 2017, a couple of the trees are eight feet tall… even though they’re close together, I haven’t taken any out, because I know pollination is a big issue, and want to get lots of female/male flowers before deciding.
Hasn’t flowered yet, but hopeful. Also wondering if cherimoyas grown from seed are better/worse/same as grafted.
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There has been plenty of work selecting improved Cherimoya varieties, so the odds are your seed grown Cherimoyas won’t be as good. However, probably better odds that it will be decent than with a fruit like apples that has been worked on for centuries.
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I would let the Cumbe grow, but try to limit it to a single branch, preferably growing horizontally so it doesn’t become apically dominant and smother the grafts.
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Thank you for the advice
Hi, several months ago I trimmed back the dominant rootstock of Cumbe, thank you for the advice. The Fino graft is showing new leaf/branch growth, but it’s still a runt. The Cumbe rootstock branch is still vertically higher than the Fino. Should I trim the Cumbe to be below the Fino grafted branch that is slow to grow (but is growing)?
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Bump
I would leave the tree alone, just keep on grafting. You should allways be ready when you get more sionwood in the future. Here is my lonely Atemoya with several grafts already pushing. The tree had been pruned in April.
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Giving an update. I ended up cutting the shoot. What I suspected was true: it was strangling the graft. Now, the graft is doing very well, and has caught up with the rest of the tree’s growth. Hopefully this can help someone else someday.
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