By this time last year, I had harvested the lot. Now the tree is loaded with fruit but it will just not ripen…was last year out of kilter, or is this year? The fruit has been on the tree for at least two months now…

Would it be overwatering?

If it were here I would say it is because summer started late, but I am not sure what it is like up around your area.

It’s a mystery all right BlueGreen…the flowering and development of fruit ran to last year’s time line…

possible?

Fruit
Our Guava Red Cherry is not ripening, it is turning into hard little marbles. Can you please tell us what is wrong and how we can fix it?

We have had this in the stock garden and we are spraying anti-fungals with success. It appears to be related to heavy rain conditions at time of fruit set. Affected fruit will not come right and will drop off but the spraying has cleared the problem from the younger fruit.
We did reactive spraying but if it was wet and muggy it wouldn’t hurt to be proactive. Increase ventilation…cut back close growing unwanted foliage or plants and opening up the canopy as this could be contributing to good fungal proliferation.

roughbarked said:

possible?

Fruit
Our Guava Red Cherry is not ripening, it is turning into hard little marbles. Can you please tell us what is wrong and how we can fix it?

We have had this in the stock garden and we are spraying anti-fungals with success. It appears to be related to heavy rain conditions at time of fruit set.

Well it certainly didn’t rain at time of fruit set, not here it didn’t, but would the constant watering (for the chookens) under and around the tree, have the same effect?

roughbarked said:

Increase ventilation…cut back close growing unwanted foliage or plants and opening up the canopy as this could be contributing to good fungal proliferation.

The canopy is rather thick, IMHO… I can’t see signs of fungal activity, but it could be the canopy needs to be opened up a bit more…

If the fruit is still hard, good-sized fruit, I wonder if I could make “green” guava jelly? Might need extra pectin or summink…

The fruit fly is leaving this crop alone, which I think says something about the un-ripeness of it…

Do the fruit still look normal, apart from not being ready yet? I’d just go with different seasons, different timings.

buffy said:

Do the fruit still look normal, apart from not being ready yet? I’d just go with different seasons, different timings.

Yes, they look fully-sized and fully-formed…thanks…

ps….I’ve never grown them! Just guessing. Because fruit here just go with the flow. Although nectarines are usually pretty much spot on second week in February. But tomatoes can be anywhere from late December to early February in having pickable fruit and finishing picking sometimes as late as the beginning of June. So on that vague information, I think you just go with whatever happens.

buffy said:

ps….I’ve never grown them! Just guessing. Because fruit here just go with the flow. Although nectarines are usually pretty much spot on second week in February. But tomatoes can be anywhere from late December to early February in having pickable fruit and finishing picking sometimes as late as the beginning of June. So on that vague information, I think you just go with whatever happens.

Yes and with guava some can be picked and ripened inside.

roughbarked said:

buffy said:

ps….I’ve never grown them! Just guessing. Because fruit here just go with the flow. Although nectarines are usually pretty much spot on second week in February. But tomatoes can be anywhere from late December to early February in having pickable fruit and finishing picking sometimes as late as the beginning of June. So on that vague information, I think you just go with whatever happens.

Yes and with guava some can be picked and ripened inside.

Thank you both…I have one or two trying to ripen on the tree…have been checking out the windows as well (the tree is beside the house) but the same story up here, closer to the sunlight…

They have finally begun to ripen…the rainbow lorikeets are very happy and unfortunately the fruit is inaccessible to me…

They have sprung me by surprise this year, in fruit already so I will have to start watering under the tree…

I did wonder where that marvellous perfume was coming from, looked up the other day and here’s all this green, formed fruit…

ahhh, the perfume was from the flower of the cherry quava…ambrosiacal for the first few days and then goes kind of sour for some reason…

Dinetta said:

They have sprung me by surprise this year, in fruit already so I will have to start watering under the tree…

I did wonder where that marvellous perfume was coming from, looked up the other day and here’s all this green, formed fruit…

They have been falling off the tree for a while. I suspect things nibble them off in the night.

roughbarked said:

Dinetta said:

They have sprung me by surprise this year, in fruit already so I will have to start watering under the tree…

I did wonder where that marvellous perfume was coming from, looked up the other day and here’s all this green, formed fruit…

They have been falling off the tree for a while. I suspect things nibble them off in the night.

The honey-eaters would have had full tummies, and I theenk there are native bees somewhere…

Started watering under this today…need to trim back MrsB’s tree (decorative shrub) so mine can branch out a bit more that way…now I have one lot of fruit growing and another cluster of flowers…will need to sprinkle very light dusting of gardening lime to keep the soil OK as the chookens are spending more time there now…

Dinetta said:

Started watering under this today…need to trim back MrsB’s tree (decorative shrub) so mine can branch out a bit more that way…now I have one lot of fruit growing and another cluster of flowers…will need to sprinkle very light dusting of gardening lime to keep the soil OK as the chookens are spending more time there now…

Water the lime and the chook poo in.

roughbarked said:

Dinetta said:

Started watering under this today…need to trim back MrsB’s tree (decorative shrub) so mine can branch out a bit more that way…now I have one lot of fruit growing and another cluster of flowers…will need to sprinkle very light dusting of gardening lime to keep the soil OK as the chookens are spending more time there now…

Water the lime and the chook poo in.

Oh yes, have started the sprinkler around the drip line just today…but thanks for the encouragement…

Dinetta said:

roughbarked said:

Dinetta said:

Started watering under this today…need to trim back MrsB’s tree (decorative shrub) so mine can branch out a bit more that way…now I have one lot of fruit growing and another cluster of flowers…will need to sprinkle very light dusting of gardening lime to keep the soil OK as the chookens are spending more time there now…

Water the lime and the chook poo in.

Oh yes, have started the sprinkler around the drip line just today…but thanks for the encouragement…

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