Gardening with Tropical Fruit

The Mountain Soursop

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

The mountain soursop (Annona montana) is the largest growing member of the annona family and is native to tropical America. Trees often reach heights of over 50 feet and have large leaves with a characteristic odor when crushed. Trees are evergreen and at least in most of central and south Florida suffer very little damage from winter temperatures.

The regular soursop has higher quality fruit that the mountain soursop, but there are a lot of seedling variations among mountain soursops and some could be selected for higher quality fruit. The fruiting season on most trees is from early summer through early fall and the fruits can be the size of a large orange or grapefruit and are almost round with a greenish-yellow skin at maturity. The yellowish to orange-yellow pulp has large brown seeds and can be used for ice cream, milk shakes, or other fresh eating.

Trees are usually grown from seed, but they also can be grafted on seedling rootstocks or other close annona relatives. Seedling trees generally take 2 to 3 years to reach bearing age, but once they begin bearing trees regularly have very heavy crops.

The fruit pulp is a good source of vitamin B and C and also phosphorus. There is a wide range of variability in mountain soursops as to their soil requirements and they seem to thrive well on dry soils and may have some potential as rootstock for other annonas.

Trees have few serious pest problems and once well established seem to thrive with very little fertilizing or intensive care like many other ornamentals require. Trees can be grown close to coastal areas, but strong salt winds can burn foliage if they are on ocean front plantings.

Few nurseries bother to graft mountain soursops, but if you have access to trees that have better quality fruit you can graft these easily when they are under 2 feet in height.