Harry:
Have the white sapotes been as prolific for you as they are in CA?

Anyone has white sapotes further north than Harry?

yes, i hear White Sapote does much better in California as well.

how has your experience been with the fruit Harry? (taste, quantity, consistency)

just tasted my first white sapote from cherimoya.com. not much complexity or flavor but very nice consistency and pleasantly sweet. will order a few more.

My Suebell and Younghan's Gold are new plantings. And, while I have never fruited them as of yet at my house, I have tasted the fruit on both before. Younghan's Gold is my favorite White Sapote of all that I have tasted. Suebell is good also, but much smaller in size.

With regard to the Redland white sapote, when I first tried it, Chris Rollins at the Fruit and Spice Park was calling it "Not SES 1". Obviously, alluding to originally thinking it was SES 1 and learning later that it was very different. Anyway, I tried the fruit and thought it was great. It was soft ball sized and very creamy and sweet without any bitter after taste. I took budwood and grafted it at home. That was 15 years ago and I now have a 20 foot tree that blooms regularly, set fruits sporadically and matures fruit infrequently. And, when the fruit has matured, it always has a strong bitter after taste. I don't know why this is. Perhaps it has something to do with the soil conditions or the rootstock. I posed this issue on Yahoo Rarefruit and the best anyone could tell me was to mulch heavily and consider some minor elements. I recently had to hack the tree back considerably since it was blocking TV reception. I will give it one more year to show me something worth while or it will be time for the White Sapote Chain Saw Masacre.

Ref the cold hardiness, I got down to twenty deg and it killed some small twigs and burned all the leaves. I offered it no cold protection. The plant is pushing a strong flush now, at least it survived!

I have the Redlands variety, zip code 32780. Mine is only 3' tall. I covered it with frost cloth during this past cold snap and the new emerging growth (tender...and it emerged before the cold snap) had only a tinge of burn on it. It got to 25.7 at my house. The tree didn't miss a beat.

lycheeluva,

try to mix the pulp of white sapote with passion fruit's pulp. The taste and aroma of this concoction is far beyond my talent for description.

Thanks everyone for sharing your experience...

jb_fla, bluepalm, what varieties do you have?

I guess the hardiness is around the same as the sweet oranges...

Now the next question is, what about production? Has anyone in Florida had a white sapote tree produce regularly and heavily?

The UF article on white sapote leaves the production question mostly unanswered... In fact, I am unable to find anyone on the web that reports a white sapote tree that produces well in FL.

There were very fruitful trees at both the Fruit and Spice park and at the TREC facility in South Dade. Other than those trees, I don;t know of any others that I would comsider that fruitful.

Harry

Fruit and Spice Park is a microclimate all its own.

i wonder how their soil compares to our yards.

I have a Redlands WS. As far as cold comparison to citrus I have the following observations:

Here are the lows in my area from 01/03 to 01/13:

32, 28, 28, 25, 25, 32, 27, 27, 20, 23 29.

My Valencia defoliated about 50% fruit probably got damaged (juice evaporated) but wont know until March. No bark split or other damage.

Hirade Butan Pummelo- 50% defoliated no other damage (fruits already consumed!)

Meyer Lemon- 50% defoliated, some bark split but overall ok

Honey Murcott, Satsuma no damage at all.

I have a vernon and suebell, both grafted. Neither was damaged by the cold-30.2 was my lowest. I too have found little info about florida productivity. The grafted trees- vernon is 4 yrs in the ground and suebelle 3yrs. Both were purchased at Excalibur and the suebelle has a few blooms this year for the first time. The vernon has grown well and is close to 10 ft tall.When I purchased the trees I was told they would produce well and as evidence the trees in pots at Excalibur seemed to all be fruiting well.

Cool,
So, at least it is reasonably cold hardy and it looks like it could be productive. I will probably get a white sapote in April...

Good luck and thanks!

The Subelle(you can pics of it on Daves Garden) of mine was actually growing in a 32 gallon container in 1990 when we had the greatest freeze in the last 40+ years in the SF bay area-a four day freeze of temps as low as 23f in Hayward. Maybe,a third of the top was cut back. But,thats skinny container branches. Anything of size held up.