I’m just trying to keep these eight mango plants happy until I can plant them in the greenhouse in about two months. This is nearly $600 worth of trees.
My recent heater failure killed the 6 mango trees I planted last fall. I should have kept them all inside.
I’m going to install a backup heater so if one fails there will be some backup.
I’m also going to make it easier to hook up a generator.
Nice @fruitnut. I lost quite a few last summer while on vacation when the heat here was just brutal with no rain (they are still in relatively small containers). The ones that survived are doing better now so hopefully I’ll get a chance to try grafting again this summer.
What temp did your greenhouse reach? Since mine are still in containers, I moved them into the garage with the freeze before Christmas and they sailed through fine. I’d like to plant some in ground though and just protect during cold weather.
What varieties are you trying?
Just before Christmas it dropped to 7F outside. The heater failed sometime that night and it was 17 in there the next morning. It was 20F in the GH the next night. Way too cold for mango. Even my figs took a big hit.
This is the first freeze in the GH in 18 years. I guess it had to happen at some point. Better now than next year.
Trees and shipping are now so expensive the losses start to hurt.
Heaters aren’t cheap either but I did find a nearly new 150,000 btu for $300. If it works that will be a cheap backup. It will probably cost 3x that much to get it installed.
I’m going out right now to start working on the hanger system to mount it at about 8ft height in the GH.
I’ve got Dot, Edward, Fruit Cocktail, Ice Cream, Orange Sherbert, Pineapple Pleasure, Sugarloaf, and Cotton Candy. Wow, thjat sounds very unhealthy.
I lost Sweet Tart and Lemon Zest trees. Grafts I lost were Angie, Neelum, Pina Colada, Honey Kiss, Pickering, Lemon Merquine, and Dwarf Hawaiian.
I think I’ll start more trees from seed and graft again when ready. That way I’m not out $600 if another disaster hits.
I gave up on mangoes and cherimoya, tooooooo finicky! Jaboticaba much easier, got one going on 11 years.
Can you compare jaboticaba fruit quality to anything I might be familiar with? Is it worth growing considering I hope to have the best stone fruit and grapes?
hope you get to be successful with at least a few if not all cultivars in your growing conditions.
anyway, for rootstock, would be good to include polyembryonic seed from ataulfo(philippine-type) mangos. That way you’d have several upright stems to graft onto, and just cull the laggards and let the most promising graft develop. And being of excellent quality while also producing clonal seedlings, you can try growing it as a self-rooted cultivar. Among the polyembryonic philippine-types, ataulfo also bears relatively smaller fruits so likely to produce earlier(from seed) than its bigger-fruited sisters.
forgot to add, mangos are like most other species–those that relatively quickly develop stems with shorter internodes(just like you’d see in a 25 yr old specimen of the same cultivar), or more leaf per unit length of stem are more likely to bear fruits sooner. Abundant sunlight would speed it up especially with mangos.
Great varieties. I grafted Lemon Zest, Sweet Tart, and some others over the summer but the rootstocks weren’t very vigorous and combined with the brutal heat, I didn’t have grafting success. My surviving trees are healthier now and I’m starting more from seed so hopefully I’ve learned enough to make the thrive and will have better success this year.
It’s always interesting seeing your greenhouse projects so I’m looking forward to the next update.
Probably certain grapes but a bit stronger taste. Bad part a single large seed and a rather tuff skin. You can get up to 5 yields per year. In my area maybe 4.
Growing a Red Jaboticaba, suppose tasting better than others.
can’t you install the heater yourself? is it complicated because there has to be an emergency circuit if the other heater fails?
This is just my opinion after tasting 1 seedling and 1 Sabara jaboticabas grown locally. The tree looks cool, fruits abundantly and doesn’t need any protection here. However, I would rate grapes much higher. It has thick, leathery skin, seeds that stick to the flesh and decent balanced flavor but nothing unique.
Cherimoya on the other hand is excellent. To me, it is like tasting vanilla ice cream. Its super sweet, grows outside with no protection here and quite vigorous. The hand-pollination part is a nuisance and I haven’t figured it out completely but local growers do get abundant fruits from their trees (so its just me getting more experience).
I never tried either of them growing up, so both fruits are new to me.
I have a controller that operates all greenhouse functions. If that fails I think everything is dead. So I was thinking I’d put the new one on a thermostat and figure out how to power it if electric fails. That gives me a backup for power loss and for failed electronics.
The heater weighs 180 lb and will be 8-10ft high in the greenhouse. I better let an expert handle it.
Thank you for the feedback on jaboticabas. It is an interesting plant. But when reading peoples list of their best fruits even on the Tropical Fruit forum it doesn’t get many mentions.
I’ve tried Cherimoya. Ones that an experienced grower said were excellent to his taste. I wasn’t a fan.
I’d be more inclined to try lychee.
The plan is mostly stone fruit, mango and citrus. With a few berries and grapes.
Sorry, I will not get rid of this tree, always grab a couple handfuls walking around. Only problem, a 25 gl heavy container, pretty heavy. Fertilizer? Holly tone, and rainwater, very acidic!
I second this suggestion. Even in my much cooler than ideal greenhouse, my in-ground ataulfo seedling (almost 2 years old) seems healthy and is growing relatively straight. It hasn’t had a freeze or anything, but it’s regularly in the low 40s in there, and the highs rarely go above 50-60°F in winter, so it seems like a good candidate for greenhouse growing.
I’m still debating whether to graft it or grow it out, but either way it’ll be a long time with my relatively short growing season.
That is a good idea, apart from the controller.
Heaters use a lot of electricity. if the electricity is gone for a long time…generator?
why did the heater fail? Was it a fault in the controller or did the heater break down? what was the reason?
I strongly suggest you install an extra sensor that will warn you, with an alarm or on your cell phone or somehow if the temperature drops too much.Independent of the controller, that you can personally intervene.
The heater failed because of a bad electronics board. I’m getting that fixed.
The heaters draw 4-5 amps at 120V. I’ll only run one at a time. So not much load on a generator.
Do you know of a good temperature alarm?
My other concern is loss of electricity or controller failure when it’s hot and sunny. So I need both high temperature and low temperature alarm capability.
i thought if there is a complete power blackout for a longer period of time. it is 600 watts that need to be provided. You need a larger power source for that.
sorry I don’t know which alarms are good.
When I build something, I always want it to be as cheap as possible.
better someone else gives you tips about these alarms, they are supposed to be reliable.
there are so many temperature alarms that you can buy and program.
but I assume you need one that reliably warns you.
Most compare jaboticaba to muscadine. Matter of fact my brother in law from Costa Rica tried one of my muscadine and said “oh I didn’t know you can grow jaboticaba in Georgia!”
I don’t think the greenhouse space would be worth it when you can grow comparable fruit outside.
You’ve probably seen the guy in Texas 8a highly successful with mango and avocado in ground (tropical fruit forum). I would stick with the mangoes and back up heat
Yes Mark. He froze out in the big storm a couple of years ago. I made it through that unscathed. So I guess this is payback.
It does give me a chance to reset. If it had happened last year it would have been worse. I had like a thousand fig plants in their last winter.
Mango seem like the most universally liked tropical fruit. I’d like to compare them to my best stone fruit and let the winner be king. 
