1 of the reason the flower drop is too much water

Annonas are pollinated by very small beetles that are not present here in Southern California, therefore we must hand pollinate.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YTaBVR-YrQc

I've been trying to hand pollinate mine this year also but since my tree is small I have a hard time getting male and female flowers to show up within the correct time frame

Yes keri_guy that is the way to go... should last a couple of days in the fridge.

I think I got 1 successfully pollinated!

Just wanted to update you guys. From our two tree, one has 1 fruitlet. The other has about 3-4 fruitlets. Each tree has probably had over 30 flowers. In upper left, you'll see a small atemoya. On upper right, you'll see a male flower as well as a female flower. In lower left, you see unopened flower. Bottom right is female flower.

From my experience, the little bud next to the female flower can either become fully fertilized or can shrivel up and fall off. It starts off with a dark tip and eventually becomes green. I read somewhere that the petals of flowers stays on if its fertilized. However, on my tree, the petals seem to fall off regardless of whether it was fertilized.

I've been hand pollinating at night with a small paintbrush. I don't save the pollen in fridge. Just use it on whatever flowers are available. I check again the next morning for flowers that just turned female.

Congratulations! It's nice to see your efforts rewarded, isn't it? Now hopefully you will see the little fruitlets stick and start to swell.

I find that it is easier to collect pollen in the morning around 10 AM when there are more female stage flowers, and apply the pollen around 4 PM when there are more male stage flowers. I keep the pollen in a black plastic film canister in the fridge. Though the timing depends on ambient temps and humidity, I notice that now that we are heating up, flowers are opening earlier, and drying up faster.

I have successfully gotten two of them to pollinate so far :)

A cherimoya fruitlet..

Glad everyone's trees growing. Here are a few more pics. In our garden, we planted 2 australian atemoya and 1 israeli atemoya. The two australian atemoyas are the bigger trees that are older (bought from nursery and aobout 6-9 ft) while the israeli atemoya was smaller (about 6 ft). All trees were grafted.

Our israeli atemoya had two flowers a few days ago. One opened up to become female and then male flower and then its petals dropped. The other opened up to become female flower but because the male flower petals already dropped, I couldn't get any pollen. I decided to use paintbrush to put pollen from our australian atemoya to the israeli atemoya to see if it will fertilize. Will let you guys know in a few weeks.

Australian atemoya:

I don't try to pollinate but this year there were about a dozen fruit on my tree. When about the size of duck eggs some animals came through and cleaned them all out. They just left the stems with a bit of skin of the fruit hanging as my share :(

@tropicbreezent : Oh no!!! How sad! I feel your pain... it's like that with my jujube fruits; the ripest, biggest, crunchy and sweet ones that I wait at just the right time to pick get eaten by birds that hang out around our garden. They eat half the jujube and leave the other half for me. Why do they always have to ruin the nicest ones!

I feel it's my lot in life - to feed all the wildlife. I think that's why Mother Nature put me on this planet, LOL.

I have about a dozen fruitlets now on one of my trees. The other tree was the first to have a fruitlet, but it hasn't grown.

My thoughts:

1) FERTILIZED: When I first started, I kept reading about storing pollen overnight in refrigerator or collecting it in a black container. I don't think it's necessary. I use a paintbrush about the size of a female flower, dab a male flower, and insert it into female flower. You don't need much pollen to have a successful pollination if the tree is healthy

2) NOT FERTILIZED: On the tree that had the first fruitlet about 2-3 weeks ago, that fruitlet has not changed in sized. That tree looks unhealthy even though I water both the same. Both trees came form same nursery. So even if you inserted paintbrush correctly, if the tree can't make fruit, you won't see any fruit.

3) TIMING: When I come home at night in evening sun has set, I go outside to look at what flowers opened up. If I see some male flowers but no female flowers, I leave male flowers alone. If I see female flowers, I use paintbrush to pollinate. In the morning, I look at the trees before I go to work and will pollinate any flowers I didn't see the night before. I water tree after 2-3 days.

4) PETALS FALLING OFF: I have seen the petals fall off some flowers that eventually become fruitlets but some petals that don't fall off also become fruitlets. I don't think it matters.

5) RATE OF SUCCESSFUL POLLINATION: It seems that the rate of successful pollination has increased with the summer. The yield was very low when I first started. I've read somewhere that the first few weeks have flowers that are infertile.

agree with epichouse1, that's how I pollinate as well. Is this the first year you are getting fruit?

first year i got fruit since planting it on my yard. the trees had 1 fruit each at nursery that we ate the last year. one grew out additional flowers last year but non were pollinated.

That's good then, this is my first year getting fruits as well. Do you know how long it takes for them to fully grow and be picked?

Sometime around november/december

Thanks, as a cherimoya newbie, that seems like an eternity!

Sugar apple (Annona squamosa) grown from seed flowering for the first time.

@ So_Cal_Mike: how long did it take from seed to flower?

About three years... maybe four. But not too bad compared to some other fruit trees.

Here is a better shot less shaded...

Yeah, three or four years is pretty good. My cherimoya that I got from Home Depot last year flowered this year in late May thru June. I successfully hand pollinated about ten flowers, got fruitlets that grew to about 10mm. Over the course of the past two to three weeks, the fruitlets decided to drop on their own, leaving me with now three of the smallest fruitlets that I doubt will make it to harvest. :(

i guess they drop because this is their first year flowering and producing fruit?

Depending on the size of the tree it may be about how much energy it has to be able to carry that number of fruit. Sort of a leaf to fruit ratio. My persimmon gets loaded with fruit every year, but naturally drops what it can't carry. Also I think you are right about a young tree needing to establish itself before carying a decent number of fruit.

Both of mine fell off :( now I have to wait until next year and try again Hopefully I can find some fruit at a local store to eat in the meantime!