Growing a Black Sapote (Chocolate Pudding Fruit) Tree in Phoenix, AZ!
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- Опубликовано: 27 май 2023
- Welcome back to The Green Yard and another growing update! I have yet to feature this beautiful, tropical tree on my channel but since it is bursting with flowers I figured now is a great time to introduce it. The Black Sapote is a tropical tree, related to Persimmons and originally from Mexico, Central America and Columbia. The fruit got it's nickname (chocolate pudding fruit), from the dark, chocolate colored flesh of a ripe fruit. It is also said to have a pudding like consistency and a slight hint of a chocolate flavor. The trees are beautiful and have large, glossy leaves and small, yellow flowers. There are several varieties of this tree sold, some of them are self pollinating and can produce fruit while others require either a male or female tree for cross pollination. This tree has been doing great in The Green Yard. It has been in the ground for almost three years and is in a spot that receives sun until 2 to 3pm. This is a little late and it would probably look better with sun ending around 11am at the latest. It requires a lower PH and is amended with sulfur. It also has been receiving fish emulsion every month for the last year or so. This year the tree is loaded with flowers and it appears that my pollination attempts have been successful with several fruits setting. If you enjoyed this Phoenix tree content please be sure to subscribe or follow us on social media.
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I did not know that ants were pollinators! My Mexican Sunflower are covered with mealybugs which the ants protect since mealybugs also provide the ants with honey dew similar to aphids.
From what I understand, mealybugs can also cause a lot of damage to citrus trees. I’ve used diatomaceous earth to try and get rid of the mealybugs and it helped some but they’d come right back. The last 2 nights I’ve finally used some bug spray, Pyrethrin & Captain Jack’s Deadbug. Now I wish I hadn’t since I remembered my Phoenix ground snakes eat insects. I did spray at night to try and mitigate any harm to honeybees. I will probably just stick with diatomaceous earth in the future.
Hi Dave, thank you for watching and commenting! Yes, ants are a great pollinator. The problem is that, like you mentioned, they also like to farm bad bugs like mealybugs and aphids because of their honeydew. I have a mealybug issue on my Ice Cream Bean tree that I have been dealing with since I bought it. Yeah, I've been trying to stay away from spraying anything in The Green Yard. I've actually seen a big increase in beneficial insects like Assassin bugs, Praying Mantis, etc. since I have been adding biodiversity into The Green Yard in the form of all of the flowering and fruiting plants and trees. I hope that the diatomaceous earth ends up being a good solution for you!
Can you get fruit from seed on the Black sapote??
Hello @bobbyphaypaseuth9704, thank you for watching and commenting! I'm not sure if you can grow them from seed and get fruit or if they are typically grafted. From doing a little research it sounds like they do not grow true to the seed so it will be a different variety if it does fruit.
What sulfur brand do you use?
Hello, thank you for watching and commenting! I use the Tiger Organic Agricultural Sulphur. They are small yellow tablets that I spread around the base of my trees. Hopefully this helps and let me know if you have any other questions.
How was your previous sapodilla. Please put a picture here. How you look after that one?.
why do you make it sound like its so hard to grow fruit trees in Phoenix, AZ!
Hello, thank you for watching and commenting! I feel that there are different levels of difficulty depending on the tree that is being grown. Citrus, Guava, Figs and Bananas are easy. Mango's, Sapodilla, Papaya are medium difficulty and then our Black Sapote's, Jaboticaba, Santol, Soursop, etc. are the difficult trees. This is definitely not a complete list of trees that can be grown here. I do believe that Phoenix has one of the best growing climates in the country and there are a wide variety of trees and plants that can be grown here. There are also factors like soil quality, PH, fertilization, that have to be taken into account to consider it "easy" to grow fruit trees here. I was not trying to make it sound like it's hard, I was just trying to be realistic with my experience.