Tropical fruits forum top five fruits poll results

When I saw the word “ Tropical fruit”, my mind went straight to tropical fruit (it’s Tropical fruit forum). With just tropical fruit, I personally do not consider sub-tropical or moderate-climate fruit on my top five.

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That’s very helpful. But in my opinion mango has poor flesh to seed ratio and is much harder to eat than a nectarine, esp freestone.

I will keep that in mind regarding lychee and logan.

Is there any sub/tropical that’s easy to eat and tasty besides banana? Banana did get one vote as someone’s top fruit.

Are there banana a lot better than store bought? I had a banana, Raja Puri, or something like that and it was a monster threatening to take over the place.

What would be your top five? Not that I could grow anything like Durian or mangosteen. I need three months with cool temperatures for stone fruit. That would be nights near 40F and days mostly 60s and 70s but some up to 90 even in winter.

That’s probably right, I think most on the TFF that are in a climate suitable for mango would not be able to grow stone fruit easily given the rain, humidity, lack of chill, etc. It could be worse though… here on the SE Texas gulf coast, it sometimes feels like we’re most suited for growing weeds :smile:.

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You’re eating the wrong kind of mangoes, or eating them wrong! This 3lb mango from my brother’s tree has a very thin seed, so it was very easy to slice off two thick slabs to cut in squares.

I did it while camping instead of in a proper kitchen, though, so my fingers were too sticky to take photos until after we cleaned up, and by then all the mango was devoured. The seed is shown here, which I didn’t weigh, but the ratio was definitely very flesh-heavy:

The elongated mango types usually have very thin seeds, so you can cut off slabs to cube easily, without leaving behind very much to be sucked off the seed (my favorite part, but definitely messy). Rounder types often have thicker seeds too, so those can be a little more tricky to cut up.

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I prefer longan to lychee… It’s delicious! I sprouted a few seeds not too long ago, but then realized the trees grow too large for pots. Unfortunately my z6b climate is not warm enough for them.

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Same for me. I just like to grow things. That’s my joy.
Out of all the tropic fruit, I like longan, Jack fruit, and cherrymoya the best. Once a year I will buy them from the supermarket.

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Could a below ground greenhouse,like the one in Nebraska,shown in the videos,grow tropical fruiting plants?

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Those setups are colder longer than mine, much longer. It’s a colder climate and there’s no supplemental heat. My warm season would be 3 months longer, maybe more.

I could try it here with lots of supplemental heat, lower light level, and higher humidity. It would still be hard. 70F nights when it’s 20 outside is expensive in an R 20 house and really expensive in an R 2 greenhouse with 10X as much heat loss.

Citrus can be grown up there but citrus can be grown in conditions much colder than tropical.

The Nebraska greenhouse climate would match up pretty well with fruits like some stone fruit, cane fruits, blueberry, grapes, persimmons, figs, and similar. That setup has massive chilling and a six month growing season with good heat. Lots of great choices there and are the Tropicals even better, maybe in Thailand but not anywhere near Nebr.

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I can understand the comparison with freestone peaches and nectarines, but I am not sure why you’d say “much harder to eat”. I would put them in the same category as clingstone peaches and well above sweet cherries. Longan and Lychee would be slightly worse than cherries. Rambutan is annoying with seed coat sticking to flesh but I am getting better at deseeding them. I heard Pulasan is better than all of these but I’ve never seen/tried them.

I think so, but I am biased. I also only know of local varieties in South India. My daughter’s favorite is yelakki (slightly bigger than a finger) and mine is one that translates in English as “red banana”. I see red banana mostly used in cooking in the US but this one is bigger and sweeter and meant for fresh eating. All of these might be too big for a greenhouse

I am thinking of sending you some cherimoyas for another try :slight_smile: We get the best ones here on a very short window in May. Those are California-grown. Everything else is worthless.

Jack fruit and similar are too big for a greenhouse, even if you like the flavor. I wouldn’t say starfruit or guavas are worth the effort. Other that those, I can only think of Chico sapote or sapodilla. Its flavor is described as pear and brown sugar. I’d agree with that description except that its texture is more close to a store-bought pear. I hear Florida has some excellent varieties that I haven’t tried yet - Alano, Butterscotch, etc. Some folks are successful with it here in a greenhouse. I would suggest to try some good varieties to see if you like the flavor and texture.

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My top 5: lychee, green wax apple, mango, white/green guava, and jackfruit.

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My top 5 tropical/subtropicals that I think I’ll be able to grow in 9b are…
Longan
Cherimoya
Feijoa
Avocado
White Sapote

But I’m a dreamer! So my ambitious 5 which I have never tasted but am excitedly experimenting with are…
Luc’s Garcinia
Achacha
Ross Sapote
Sapodilla
Mango

Feijoa might actually get into a straight top 5. On the metric that I can just keep eating it, like longan.

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Since I grew up in Thailand, lived there many years and have still visited regularly, I have eaten tons of tropical fruit over the years.

I was also fortunate to grow up in upcountry. It gave me plenty of opportunities to eat all kinds of fruit, several are known only regionally.

My top 3 favorite tropical fruit grown in Thailand, in no particular order.

  • Mangosteen
  • Lychee
  • Durian

The others that make top 10 are:

  • Rambutan
  • longan
  • Mango
    -Jackfruit
  • sugar apples/custard apple
  • pomelo ( good ones are sweet, refreshing, can’t stop at one)

Cherimoya is not as popular in Thailand as it is in Vietnam. We prefer Sugar apples.
Fully ripe Sapodilla is very sweet and aromatic.
Banana and pineapples are so common that they are often overlooked by most people there.
Dragon fruit - too many mild/bland varieties. Fruit that need luck in buying the right ones is not on my list.
Jackfruit (one word) is really nice. It looks like durian but taste and texture is totally different. It definitely makes my top 10.

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The taste of grocery store tropical fruits doesn’t represent the taste of the fruits in tropical region. Lychee here lacks of aroma, lacks of sweet flavor, lacks of Juicininess, lacks of the size, lacks of … The only thing it doesn’t lack is the large seeds, the grocery bought lychee has so big seed.

The result would be much more accurate and useful if the voters had tasted each of typical tropical fruits in the region so they know what each tropical fruits is supposed to taste like.

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When I was in Vancouver years ago, the tropical fruits there were amazing. They are no longer there, not in Chinatown anymore.

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I’d like to try your favorites in Thailand. What would be the best time of year to visit so as to taste the most good fruit from your list?

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Mangosteens and durians are in April- July. Lychees comes out in “cooler”;season, Nov-Jan.

Most of the fruit ripen in the “summer”, April - June. It is hot and humid. In Thailand. We have 3 seasons, hot, hotter and damned hot :joy:.

If you head to southern Thailand and hang out on one of those islands with beautiful beaches, you should be OK. Plenty of fruit in the south.

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Fruitnut,
@murky has taken trips to Thailand more often than I do. He probably could give you input/tips about visiting Thailand from an American’s point of view.

Maybe, you could go with @thecityman. Kevin wants to take a trip there, too.

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My family would like the beaches and maybe even sample the fruit. My daughter was in Bangkok and on an island south of there in December. She liked it there.

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Lot of beautiful beaches down south. Beaches on islands are nicer than beaches on mainland.

The northern part of the country is mountainous with a tropical forest atmosphere. No beaches up north but it is very charming region. Hope you will go there one day. I think you’ll like it. Plenty of food and fresh fruit everywhere you go.