Gardening with Tropical Fruit

August 2005

By Gene Joyner, Extension Agent
Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension Service

Wetter than normal conditions has prevailed in many areas of Florida in the last two months and this although good for making plants grow has been a problem on certain tropical fruits that don’t like excessive amounts of moisture. Things such as avocados have dropped much of their crop in some areas due to heavily saturated soils and in some cases if standing water was present for more than a day or two trees have even been killed.

Other effects on fruits this time of year include fruit splitting on thin skinned fruits. This was especially noticeable in June on the lychee crop with many people reporting high percentages of fruit loss due to the heavy rains.

There are some good signs this time of year though. If you’re putting out tropical fruit trees, they should establish quickly with our good growing conditions and this is a great time of year for all types of propagation including grafting, budding, air layering or planting seed. Many people that collected seeds earlier in the year and planted them now should have seedlings starting to emerge and these can be grafted later or if they don’t have to be grafted they can safely be put out into the landscape in the early fall.

Some insect and disease problems are showing up but usually don’t require control measures. It’s just a summer problem that you have to experience and then it goes away. If you have very young trees though that are experiencing heavy infestations of sucking insects such as scale, mealybugs, or whitefly, some control measures using insecticidal soaps or other products might be necessary.

If you have questions about some of the things in your landscape at this time of year that you’re not familiar with, check with fellow members at monthly meetings or contact your local office of the Extension Service.