When I was recently in Miami, I collected a pocketful of seeds from various surinam cherry bushes (E. uniflora), with the intention of growing them in my greenhouse as rootstocks for eventual grafting with improved selections of uniflora. I just potted a bunch of them up, they had nice taproots coming out of the seeds, looked like nearly 100% germination after a couple weeks in a damp paper towel atop the microwave.
What I’m not finding anywhere is a convenient chart of what otherEugenia species (or perhaps even other genera?) are graft compatible with uniflora. Even over on TFF, this question has been asked a few times (e.g., here and here), but despite a couple failures, e.g., cherry of the Rio Grande (E. involucrata), the broader question has never really been answered.
So, I figured I’d pose the question here, and if no one knows the answer then maybe in a year or two I’ll start updating this thread with my results from various grafting attempts. There are over 1,000 accepted species in this genus, so surely some of them will work, even if CORG doesn’t.
Do you grow any uniflora or involucrata in ground?
I’m also curious about the graft compatibility for the future as I’ve never attempted, all my plants are small
I haven’t tried growing any Eugenia species here before now, either in the ground or in containers. My toddler really enjoyed eating uniflora on our recent trip to Miami, so I decided to give them a go. I’ve tasted some really good ones in the past, but these seeds weren’t from very good bushes (lots of resin taste), so l plan to at least graft them with a better selection of uniflora, if not some other better Eugenia.
Hi Winn,
You may be plowing new ground. It’s unclear to me why you want to graft them? This spring I grafted Nanking cherry to one of my cherry trees as well as to one of my plum trees but it’s too early to know if the grafts are taking. My grafts are three weeks old with buds swelling but not yet substantial growth to verify a take on either. It’s a shrub type plant of the Prunus family and I know it’s compatible with plum from another member who sent me scions. If you eventually have scions and want to test grafting to plum or cherry I am willing to try some.
What would be your goal in determining graft compatibility? If your seeds are germinating and you want the fruits from them, why not just grow the seedlings out to see if any provide edible fruits. If your daughter liked the fruits from the plants of your seed origin, chances are they were open pollinated and there would be some variability of fruit quality among them. So maybe clarify for other members why you want to know about compatibility for grafting, always an interesting topic to me
Dennis
Kent, wa
Just not a lot of information available on success rates within the genus. I think the only reliable source is people hopefully having some first hand experience in having success. The scions are also pretty hard to come by for improved cultivars which to my knowledge there aren’t a ton of. In the Garcinia genus “Lucs” comes to mind but there aren’t a lot
I’ve eaten a rather preposterous number of surinam cherries in my life, and some are quite good. These seeds are from a bush that was much, much worse than even an average uniflora specimen, so I’m not interested in testing their fruit quality. My daughter is a lover of fruit and willing to eat almost anything, but I assume she’ll like better specimens too.
I’m mostly interested in grafting other Eugenia species because most people seem to agree that there are better ones than even the best uniflora, but I’ve only tasted a couple and would be interested in growing a single multi-graft Eugenia tree in a large container (to go in the greenhouse for freezes).
Yeah, on TFF buy/sell section people offer seeds and scionwood sometimes, but not a huge number. That’s probably where I’ll source mine, plus anything I can collect myself on my regular visits to south FL.
And they are at a premium, don’t think you can reliably source them anytime. But I never go on that forum, hard to access with my phone and that’s basically all I use.
Looks like Flying Fox Fruits has some videos on grafting eugenias and Suriname cherries. Quick look through kinda looks like its just a better quality fruit onto a rootstock, and not different species. But your right, there are tons of species, including many native stoppers, so I’m sure theres gotta be some that can be grafted onto others.
a couple months ago i grafted pitanga, pitomba, pitangatuba onto a few pitangas. here’s one of the pitombas…
one of the pitangatuba scions has slightly less growth, but the same amount as the pitanga scions. the weather has been cool and is just starting to warm up, so growth is starting to pick up as well.
at this stage though i wouldn’t be surprised if the scion itself is the sole source of energy for the new growth. it will probably take another month to tell. then there’s the eternal question of long-term compatibility.
That’s great! Have you tried all three? I’ve never tasted either pitomba (E. luschnathiana) or pitangatuba (some sources call this E. neonitifa and others call it selloi, not sure which is right), so they were definitely both on my list of things I hoped to add to a multi-graft tree at some point.
Other than pitanga/surinam cherry, I’ve only tasted CORG (involucrata) once, and it was a bit underripe I think. That’s it for the genus as far as I remember, though I wouldn’t be surprised if my dad (active in the Miami rare fruit council) introduced me to others that I’ve forgotten about when I was little.
My new hobby is going down that list and looking up every single one. This one (E. klotzschiana aka “pera do campo”) looks a little silly, but sounds potentially tasty. I’d never heard of it, but apparently it’s cultivated to some extent in Brazil:
I have a few Eugenias that I’m starting from seed, Black Surinam Cherry, Eugenia observa (Pitanga de Perdiz), Eugenia angustissima (Very Fined Leaf Cherry, has like a pine looking leaf apparently), and Eugenia sp Batinga Verdadeira. I also have Simpson Stoppers which used to be a Eugenia but is now Myrcianthes fragrans. There is so many others that look so interesting and tasty, that I will probably end up getting more, but I’m letting some things grow out now and see what everything looks in a few months.
yup i’ve tried all three. the pitangatuba smells amazing, like mango and peach, but it just tastes really sour. mostly not worth eating. it’s a different story if you eat a miracle berry beforehand. then the pitangatuba tastes just as good as it smells.
if you wait for the pitomba to turn orange then it tastes like an apricot. but so far the plant itself seems kinda wimpy in comparison to the pitangatuba. i have them right next to each other so that hopefully they will cross and produce a hybrid that’s the best of both worlds.
a couple years ago i tried my friend’s eugenia sp. aff aggregata and it was really good. i have a few seedlings of it that i’m giving so much tlc to. last year i tasted grumichama for the 1st time and it was almost as good.
my eugenia stipitata started to produce its 1st fruit but it failed. i’ve heard it’s ridiculously sour but this phylogenetic tree puts it right next to uniflora. it also has pitomba and cherry of the rio grande right next to each other. this other tree puts uniflora right next to brasiliensis. i’m sure it would be a different story if all 1000+ species were included but some clues about compatibility are better than nothing.
Personally I’ve only grafted uniflora onto itself. I’m not sure why you’d want to graft uniflora onto another Eugenia species since its seedlings make a good rootstock on its own. Other than that I have not been able to successfully cross graft Eugenia species with any success, at least past an initial push.
More and more Eugenia are available now in the past 3-4 years than probably in the last 20+ years because of the mass importation of seeds recently. As soon as these seedlings start to grow out we’ll be able to see which are compatible.
VFG wont toot his own horn but he has amassed an amazing collection if in ground and green house Tropicals and hardy citrus in the Virginia Beach area. Check out his youtube channel (27) Virginia Fruit Grower:seedling: - YouTube
I’m hoping to graft other Eugenia species onto my uniflora seedlings, not the other way around. Sad to hear you’ve not had any luck with that. I was hoping to have just one or two multi-graft Eugenia frankentrees because I don’t have enough greenhouse space for all the different Eugenias I want to try to be on their own roots/seedlings.
Virginia Fruit Grower:seedling: - YouTube