Cherimoya - Fino De Jete Seeds

Jason says...
Fino seedlings are highly likely to be very good Cherimoyas, even a good change of being better than the parent especially for your local climate. I've heard some peoples 2nd and 3rd generation Fino seedlings taste like "strawberries" :0. Because Cherimoyas fruit so fast from seed so long as you have seed from a good tree it's more less pointless to grow grafted ones

John Mc says...
I'm convinced the large 40/50yo Cherimoya tree that I have access to is a seedling, the fruit is not as good as I'm led to believe, actually it's only just edible. I read somewhere that the worst Cherimoya fruit is still better than the best Atemoya. Not applicable to seedlings that's for sure (Jason???). I can't wait till my four cv's are producing.

Jason says...
Mike the best Cherimoyas make Atemoyas look verrrrry very bad. But getting a good Cherimoya isn't anything easy because you need the just right climate which means 2000+ meters in the tropics, and there's no such a place in Australia to grow one on.

I certainly can't grow them to be very good tasting here. I mean.. I can get Fino to be maybe slightly better than an Atemoya in a good year but they should be so much better than that, Fino is a really classy Cherimoya and you should expect it to be outstanding if you have the right climate. Up in the mountains in Mexico probably 1 in ten seedlings are clearly better than Mangos or Lychees and about the best fruit you can ever taste. The worst of them are still pretty good in the right climate, these aren't seedlings from selected parents though. Everytime I've grown a seedling Cherimoya I've had flowers in the 3rd year and any time you have a flower on one of those you have a fruit if you get out and pollinate it.

In my Climate the variety "White" can not be made taste better than wet cardboard, it's really really reallly bad, in fact it struggles so much it refuses to finish making the seeds. Fino does much better and is pretty good tasting but nothing like it should be.

People further north have told me cherimoyas don't taste any good much further North than the mountains in Northern NSW but they said they were better than Atemoyas in that area. I always felt the ideal climate in Australia is probably Southern NSW in Eden or maybe in the lower altitudes of the blue mountains outside Sydney.

Of course it's all a bit subjective because a very good Cherimoya has to be a little bit acidic and "fizzy" like Sherbet to bring out the complex flavours. A good Cherimoya can taste like pineapple, banana, strawberries and general fruit salad with a bit of sherbet on top all at once :0, People in the tropics are adapted to much sweeter flavours which temperate folk do not enjoy, so it's not going to be the same deal for both tropical and temperate people

allybanana says...
Ahh i hope your right Jason about eden being good for cherimoya, hopefully in a few years i can let you know. there are three diggers seedlings locally i got for friends on their way. I'm ordering a big buy from tree growers of grafted varieties. About a dozen people are part of the buy and so there will be a lot in the area to compare microclimate.

John Mc I would leave the branch on and managed, until curiosity is satisfied.

Jason says...
allybanana, you should be able to tell pretty quickly how well suited the climate is just by the way they are growing

klokanovic says...
So it's been 4 weeks even since I planted the 5 seeds and no love has come my way...no tap root...nothing. So I tried to dig out the seeds from three of the plantings and couldn't even locate the seed. No shell, nothing - as though I never planted the things.

The pots were in a glasshouse, so it's not as though birds had taken them....very strange.

All the other vegetables I planted at the same time came up beautifully.

allybanana says...
It depends on personal taste, they have different characteristics, I have only tried a very small range of cultivars.

A tree ripened Forbidden fruit is not bad, like a very sweet atamoya in flavor but thin skin and handles poorly. Fino is good with some fresh vanilla especially if not fully ripe unless you like heavy liquorish tones. Sophia is a light refreshing flavor and has great fresh vanilla tones but needs good sunlight and warmth to be sweet and requires hand pollination. Fino is the most reliable in Eden, flowers that opened from December to Jan, ripened fruit late Autumn all through winter and are still ripening, all of good quality. Forbidden fruits appears less happy with cold weather, this winter slowed it down. My son's favorite is the fruit of a diggers seedling grown by a friend, but I would say Fino is first for myself but FF ripens later, extends the crop and is also good. I also found if I nipped of the terminal buds in summer both fino and Sophia sent out more flowers, these produced very late fruit.

Markmelb says...
I got to taste my Camper this year (i dont think its the improved one) it was the best Cherimoya ive tasted so far and was almost as good as a red sugar apple I tasted last year. My Whites wasnt that good last few years and because its not so cold tolerant as Camper and FdJ i might stop growing it. I have Sophia seedlings and a Giant Cherimoya not fruited yet so maybe they could hold one this year. I still have 2 Paxtons and 3 Pinks still hanging on for new leaves to push so hope they dont fall off as yet. Pic is of Camper but got a bit bigger than this.

Pictures - Click to enlarge
Picture: 1

Markmelb says...
No idea Carl re Giant Cherimoya but as soon as i get it to pollinate and have some fruits will put up some pics -
Some FF cherimoyas are now here in Melbourne so hope to multigraft & taste in next few years? Need a warm spot for the FF as it has larger leaves than even FDJ and less cold tolerant as is likely a hybrid of Aytemoya/Cherimoya?

ivepeters says...
Anyone ever have a spare ff ? Would be interested in one.

ivepeters says...
Thanks for the offer John.
Would you think they grow true from the seeds ?