Thank you all for your feedback on what that little growth is.

jtwg and flatwood farms: Yes .. that is indeed the flowering bud and not a fruit .. lol. Thanks for the idea on hand pollination.
I see there are 6-7 spots where the flowering buds are appearing. Each spot has at least 2 flowering buds, so hopefully there's a lot of blooms to pollinate each other. I'm planning to hand pollinate them with a brush if that will work and just hope more than one flowering bud will bloom at the same time.

bunti, the plant is in a pot now. Here's a pic of the whole plant. I hope your guava will fruit for you. Maybe you can hand pollinate the blooms?

Here is a link to a video on hand pollinating Cherimoya. Should be no different for the Sugar Apple, works on my Atemoya. I use a #1 size water color brush, and a old film canister to collect/store the pollen (kept in the refrigerator if you don't have any female flowers opening when you are collecting the pollen).

DM

Here is a link that might be useful: Cherimoya hand pollination video

I didn't Pollinate.. it happened naturally. I am also having the same size of the plant as yours. I am crossing finger that its going to bloom soon.

Here are my guavas I had last year.

Guavas are different. I discovered some years ago that tiny sap beetles will pollinate annonas and you want to attract as many of them as you can. To do this, cut up and scatter spoiling citrus fruits around the trees and the beetles will congregate soon. I recommend hand pollinating just in case the beetles take a day off. This week I'm pollinating Annona senegalensis, Ilama, and 'Geffner' atemoya

The hand pollination video claims that minimizing pollen will reduce the number of seeds in the fruit. What does everyone think of this?

I kinda thought that each little segment of the fruit needed a grain of pollen. And, that if that some segments didn't get grains of pollen, the fruit would be very irregular.

My Geffner for sure will get irregularly shaped fruits if you don't pollinate them. I use little makeup brushes and tear off one of the three flower petals to get the brush into the center of the flower.

My GF is STILL looking for the brushes I swiped :-) Just kidding, We get them in a dollar store

Dangermouse,

Thank you for the video link. I've started watching and haven't come to the end yet. I'm still waiting for the blooms to open to pollinate.

Bunti, thanks for sharing picture of your guavas. I hope your guava will fruit for you this year again.

Flatwood Farms and Gnappi,

I'm glad to hear of your hand pollination experience. Any idea what a male or female Sugar Apple should look like? Do you have pictures to share?

One of my blooms here is opening today, but the third petal is kind of still stuck shut. I can already see the pollen from the little in between gaps. So, I should peel off the shut petal then? I don't know if the flower is male or female, so any info or pic would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Bananafan; when the flower first opens it is in a female stage, as the petals spread wider it becomes male.
In the link about halfway down there is a picture of a cherimoya flower in the male stage.

DM

Here is a link that might be useful: Cherimoya male stage

my sugar apple also flowering. Its very tiny now. I will post the picture once it grows little bigger. I am excited to see it growing fruit.

DM,

Thanks for the link and for the info on the male and female flowering status. That is something rather interesting. I have just one flower blooming a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, there weren't any other female blooms around to cross pollinate. The petals were starting to dry up today. I tried to save it by knocking its pollen into a little container. The bloom and the pollen are all now in the fridge. I'll wait for the others to bloom and I'll try to hand pollinate when they're in their female stage. I don't know though if the pollens are still ok though. I'll have to look out for lone male flowers from now on and save their pollens if there aren't any females around from now on. Either that, or I hope to see some females and some males in order for me to do the trick without having to save the dying male flowers.

Bunti, congratulations to your Sugar Apple. Are you planning to hand pollinate them too?

My tree is 3 years old. I put it in the ground 2011 it is around 8ft tall now. It has around a dozen or so flowers now. Maybe I'll get a fruit or two. I put some mango scraps on the branches to attract pollinators.

Good luck!

Vince

Today I have noticed that each new growth is having a flower bud. there are somany flowers on my plant. I wish I have atleast one fruit this year. will post the picture soon.

Vince,

That was a nice picture with a great tropical setting under a beautiful blue sky. I do hope you'll get some fruit setting for you soon.

I saved the pollen of a dying bloom and tried to pollinate one flower. Apparently it did not succeed and it dried off too, but before it did, I again saved some of its pollen and has just pollinated another bloom. I have close to 30 blooms, but at this point in time they none really stay bloomed at the same time yet ... I wonder if I should just rely on the bugs to do the job.

Bunti, I'm glad that your plant is giving off so many blooms. Yeah ... post a picture when you are able to.

My Sugar Apple blooms are forming fruit now. I've counted seven tiny fruitlets. I just hope they'll grow to maturity.

I did hand pollinate them with a brush, but I don't know if the bugs did them or it was due to my manual pollination. I'm just glad to see the fruitlets in any case.

Congrats bananafan!

My tree is twice the size of yours and I have yet to get any fruit. Mine however, was grown from seed so it needed the full three years it had in the ground. I hope my tree will fruit next year. Looking back a grafted tree would have been a better choice. I hear seed grown develop better root systems and grow larger. Maybe my patience will pay off.

Congrats again!

Vince

Vince,

Thanks for posting a close up pic of your Sugar Apple tree. It is a pretty and healthy plant you have there and that's what counts for a good crop production when it's ready to do so. Hopefully it will be soon for you and I'm sure when it does, you will have a lot of fruit to enjoy.

As for mine, I'm surprised that in its juvenile stage, it's producing fruit. I don't know if it's a good idea to let it do so or not, but like all amateur growers, I'm always impatient to want to have the fruit first ... lol. We'll see how this baby pan out.

Here's another picture of the fruit today. It's about a lady's thumb nail size. I think the fruit is getting shy now because I've been gawking at it a lot which I just can't help ... :)

vince,

Sugar apples are grown from seed. I haven't found grafted one.

My plant has somany blooms. but all are blooming and drying. My plant is about the size of bananafan's plant. Still have few blooms. Lets wait and see.

Bananafan,

Congrats... did you do something? like pollinate?

Please keep us updating...

I am not going to worry much atleast this year. I hope for next year.

I think that sunlight and type of fertilizer are important too. I feed my trees a lot of nitrogen, with a 6-6-6 or 10-10-10. I notice it encourages growth, but not as much flowering and fruiting. I've seen small trees produce all the time. But anyway, I figure eventually, fruiting will be inevitable. In my travels to tropical countries like India, Thailand and South America custard apple and sugar apple grow wild from discarded seeds and never get care and produce in an abundance. Maybe next year I'll try neglect. Lol! I guess I just want toestablish them.

My chocolate sapote and avocado both fruit bushels every year. I used to fertilize them often but now kind of want them to slow down. I can't imagine feeling that way about any annona or good mango. I'm hoping for some beautiful fruit next year, although bananafan has me jealous!

Here are my sugar apple blooms...

Bunti,

I hand pollinated the blooms, but I don't want to take credit for all of it because I've seen a lot of ants crawling around the blooms, so they might have done it. If you do hand pollinate, use a brush to collect the pollens from the male flowers. They are the blooms that are fully open. The female blooms are the ones that are just starting to open. After you've dipped the brush into the male bloom, you can try to pry into the almost open petals of the female blooms to pollinate.

Vince,

I'm glad you have your chocolate sapote and avocado are producing by the bushels every year for you. I wish I could say that of my Haas Avocado. Anyway, my Avocado is still relatively young. I'll give it a little time to do the thing. As for my Sugar Apple, it's too early to say whether the fruit will carry to full term yet ... lol. I've seen my mangoes fruiting and then to abort those fruit simply because they're still younger plants. At this moment, most of my tropical fruit trees are relatively young. I'm not expecting to see any huge crop any time soon.

I'm really happy though that some of my bananas do bear fruit each year and of course this year, my Lychee Brewster finally surprised me with a fruit production of about 70 lychees.

When growing fruit trees, I think maturity of the fruit trees will be the key thing to crop production. At this point in time, I'm just tight in ground space, but I often bite off more than I can chew and I keep acquiring fruit trees even though I don't know where to plant them ... lol!

Another thing is of course the weather. I don't know what your planting zone is. As for me here, the zone 9b FL is actually pushing through the limits for some of my ultra sensitive plants. Many of them will be killed off by the cold weather in a moment's time. I'm just lucky that my lychees are still around. They should have been dead if the past two winters weren't as harsh.

Anyway, lets all look forward to keeping our tropical babies alive, strong and big and then we can look forward to some consistent and sizable fruit crops :) By the way, I'll be very interested to see pictures of your Chocolate sapote and Avocado. Do you have some to share?

Bananafan,

Per your request, here is a pic of my avocados. The tree this year is full of them.

Regards,

Vince

Bananafan,

Here is my chocolate sapote tree.

I find it to be very hardy. It gives Winter fruit which is neat.

Regards,

Vince

Vince,

Very handsome plants indeed! A few questions for your Avocado: How old is your tree now and when does it start to produce fruit? Also, when is harvest time for Avocadoes? I have a Haas Avocado and it's now about 5 ft tall. It has sent out a lot of new growth and becoming more bushy and I don't know when to expect anything from it.

With regards to your Chocolate Sapote, it looks like an interesting fruit tree to plant. Does the fruit actually taste chocolaty? I've never tasted one before. Can you blend it up for a pudding? If it's hardy where I am here, I'm seriously thinking of getting one soon.

Thanks for the eye candy treat. I always enjoy seeing pictures of fruit trees fruiting ... lol !!

This is my Sugar Apple fruit two months after blooming. The largest one is the size of a large strawberry now. There are six fruit that are developing. There are still tiny blooms here and there, but they're not doing anything now as the energy seems to go to the fruit development now.

Hopefully, I'll be able to taste one of them, though I don't know how long it takes for the fruit to mature. We'll see.

Here's a picture of another fruit.

Bananafan,

My avocado was planted from seed around or 1999,
It started to produce in 2007. I believe the original fruit was a "Lula."
It gives us fruit from August to December. You can keep avocado on the tree until about a week before toy want to eat them. It takes appx that long to ripen off the tree.

My chocolate sapote is not terribly sweet but does have a mild chocolate fragrance and a smooth creamy consistency. The fruit is very good for your health. The fruit has great anti-aging qualities. I take the fruit let it ripen and
make a regular morning shake with it. I simply blend the very ripe flesh with ripe bananas and juice. I'm not exaggerating when i tell you that I maintain a healthy glow mid- December because of my health shakes.

In other news, my custard apple tree is flowering like crazy and I think I successfully pollinated a few of the flowers.

Vince,

It's great that you can plant your avocado from seed and then see it mature and bear fruit. I have started some Rambutan, Longan and Lychee seedlings back in 2007 just for fun. They don't seem to grow too much in size. It could be I've been neglecting them and partly also because I don't know what to expect from seedlings. Perhaps one of them may surprise me one day. I was hoping it would be my Rambutans .. nah probably not. Still, I was rather surprised how they take the beating in the cold and yet survive. I sometimes forget they're even there.

Congratulations on your Custard Apple! The blooms look very much like the Sugar Apple's, if not exactly alike. How tall is the plant now? I'm glad you're able to hand pollinate them. It looks like of of them in the pic is forming fruit. What's the taste like? I do hope you'll get to eat some soon.

I'm health nut too and an all out believer in the health benefits and therapeutic effect of some of the natural food sources. I'm also going organic as far as edible plants are concerned. You've just convinced me on the Chocolate Sapote! I goggled Chocolate Sapote and came back with Black Sapote for another name. I'll place a rush order for it :)

Thanks for the picture of your Custard Apple. It looks like you have a busy orchard there. Do update as things develop.

My sugar apple flower became a fruit. Right now its very tiny. I am exicted to share the news. I will post the pictures once its has grown little bit.

Bananafan, Bunti,

You both are so lucky to have your sugar apples producing so soon. I have two 3yr old trees and I don't have any fruit. I'm sure next year we will have some fruit. I keep a high density tropical orchard because of a lack of space.
I guess eventually if the trees keep growing well they will produce. I'm the mean time, I have guava and bananas a plenty!

I will keep you posted on my progress. Bfan, the custard apple or anonna reticulata to me, tastes great! Very sweet and creamy. It does very well in most subtropical climates with little to no effort.

Regards,

Vince

PS

Here is my Rollinia tree.

Can you please update with you sugar apple fruits..

Hi Bananafan. I am loving your pictures of your sugar apples! I actually have never ate a sugar apple fruit BUT, I have enjoyed eating many cherimoyas though! I am hoping next spring I can mail order either a sugar apple or an atemoya which is a cross between sugar apple and cherimoya.

I loved the cherimoya but buying them locally is not cheap. They usually sell for $7.99. They were decent but I know if I grew them myself they would have tasted even better. I have ordered them in from CA before.

I have yet to find a grower who ships sugar apples. I do know of someone in CA that specializes in growing annonas. He sells them at reasonable prices and what's even better, he sells trees that he does multiple grafts on!

Since I love in zone 6, I have to haul everything back indoors sometime between mid to late September or October.

I also am trying thinking of ordering a dwarf banana tree. I am leaning toward the lady finger, and also hoping to find dwarf Puerto Rican plantain. I love plantains but I'm sure you know that these banana trees can get HUGE!

I cannot wait to see pictures of all your fruits ripening, especially the sugar apples!

Andrew

We went to Mexico and got all these fruits less than $20. It was exciting.

This is my successful cherimoya graft. It is about 1.5 months old. I hope it will give great tasting fruits.

Andrew,

Thanks for sharing the info of your Cherimoya. Is the taste rather similar to that of the Sugar Apple? I wanted to see how the Sugar Apple tastes like, so I bought some frozen ones from the Asian grocery. I tasted a little of it--it was sweet and has a cottony texture to it. I'm not so sure at this point if I am in favor of it, but anything that is frozen it's hard to tell. I'm going to wait out for the fresh fruit to harvest.

I've taken a couple of pictures and was getting ready to post, but didn't get around doing it until now. Out of the 6-7 fruit, only 3 of them have started to grow reasonably. The largest one is about the size of a small apple now. The only bad news is the plant is now looking rather sick--with white and black spots. Some kind of disease is bothering it now. I just hope it will not affect the fruit.

Bunti, I hope yours is doing ok. Would love to see your picture update too.

Grandwater, thanks for sharing pictures of your store bought Sugar Apple and Cherimoya. Can you describe their taste?

Thanks guys for checking in. I'll try to post again later .. if I succeed to get a harvest. Hope you all will be able to get yours to produce fruit for you soon too (if not this year, then next year) :)

Another fruit which is slightly smaller than the first one. You can see the white spots on the leaves in the background. I have already wiped the entire plant with alcohol once and it just came right back again in a few weeks. Don't know what else I could have done. Any idea?

Hi,
I'm looking to purchase a Sugar Apple Plant or some seeds, would be willing to pay shipping if by UPS to my home address.
Thanks any help.

This is the second year my Sugar Apple had fruit but the first year we ate them. I have seeds if you still want them.

Regarding sugar apple pollination. I accidentally stumble into this by accident last year. It works wonderfully.

I have 2 fruiting seedling at my house and I had about 5 fruits. Hand pollinated the crap out of them. I gave my brother the 3rd seedling. It was placed next to his straweberry bed. There were lots of small beatles there. He had 11 fruits from his only sugar apple tree. Seems like every single flowers turn into fruits. I am going to try and plant some strawberry next to mines to see what will happened this year. He did not hand pollinate his plants. Good luck everyone. Hope it helps.

Sunny orchard,

Congratulations to your new Sugar apple fruit. How wonderful! Do you grow yours indoor? It would be nice if you could post some picture updates.

Fan,

They are in door in the winter. They are about 5.5' tall including the pot. here are their pics.

My brother's sweetsop.

Mine

Caution: please do so at your own risk. These are just what I experimented on mine. I am not responsible for any tree death from my comments below. I am not a professional of any kind.

I leave them alone indoor the winter. When temperature reach 45+ F, I bring my trees outside and remove 90% the leaves. Then I prune each branch down to 1.5 feet. The tree then flush with blossom. They are getting too big to carry in and out now. I am growing their seedlings replacements right now. Once they start producing. I'll throw these away. Probably in 5 yrs, 2019. Oh yea the fruit is so sweet but not that great. It's kinda of rubbery. Maybe because they only have 2 hrs/day of south window sunlight in the winter. Hopefully this year will be better.

I *love* looking at everyone's sugar apple fruitlets pictures. Aren't these sugar apples so cute? I am actually used to calling them custard apple. I have been hand pollinating mine like crazy too (lots of flowers) but so far only 1 seem to take (size of pinky finger tip), the rest are tiny and they fell off. I'll try you guys' tip to attract beetles so they can help with the pollinating job.

TheNewLandscape,

I hope you get some fruit to form for you soon. Your planting zone there should be suitable for this heat loving tropical plant.

Mine, unfortunately, died in this past Winter and never came back. I left it out in the pot because I simply had too many plants to move inside my home during the cold this past Winter. I also noticed when mine fruited last year, there was a lot of white cottony stuff on it. I think it's the white flies. For some reason, the white flies love to attack it. I harvested a couple of fruit before the infestation got worse. We all loved the taste of it, but it was too delicate plant to have for me around here.

It would be nice if you have some pictures to share of your plant. Have you thought of using a brush to hand pollinate the blooms? I think I did that to my blooms as suggested by some forumer in this thread here and had some success to get fruit formed that way for me. Hope to hear some good news of your fruit forming for you soon.

fan2

I started a new thread in Tropical Fruits to post pics of my baby custard apples. I have about 15 little fruits, size of a finger tip. Still have flowers, so I'm still pollinating them but have slowed down a little, as I try not to overstress the young tree with a heavy production (but another part of me wants as much fruits as I can get on that pretty tree LOL)

more

This is great! I want to read and follow up all these comments. I am soaking sugar apple seeds and hope to fruit early. We call it atis on Guam. I also have avocado seedling; been sitting in water for months! Still living, waiting to be grafted with mother tree to fruit early.

Hi Friends, Does anyone have some sugar apple seeds? My tree ended up as a Cherimoya tree. Now i am look for some Sugar apple seeds i will really appreciate if some one can send me some sweets from a good sweet fruit. i can pay for the postage& even seeds. Thanks in advance 🙏