Healthy Plant Food

Q&A from Mr Booster

Plant food for a Star Fruit

Q: I have 2 Starfruit plants from you. One on the left is B10 has a lot of flowers but no fruit is developing. On the rite is Kenjeng. This one has no flowers at all. Both plants are growing very well. Plenty of sun and water. I am located in Boynton Beach Florida. So what to do?

A: Your trees on the pictures look very healthy, congratulations with a great care!
Starfruit, as well as other grafted fruit trees (like mango, avocado, etc) usually flower/fruit easily and readily while in pots in the nursery. Sometimes, once planted in the ground, they may reduce flowering or even stop flowering. What happened?
The answer is simple. In pots, we fertilize them on regular basis. In our nursery, we have fertilizer injector inline with irrigation system that dozes plant food with EVERY watering. In other nurseries, they may also use slow-release fertilizers, but it is still a regular routine to provide plant food to potted plants.
In the ground, especially in Florida poor soils, fruit trees may stop flowering or delay fruiting due to lack of nutrients, or dis-balance of elements in the ground. Without fertilizer, a tree may take extra time to develop bigger root system to reach out for necessary elements, and eventually will start fruiting anyway.
But we want it to fruit soon! The only way to fix the problem is to provide fertilizer on regular basis for a young tree. It is especially important during hot summer months when plant metabolism is fast due to high temperatures, plus nutrients may get washed away with frequent summer rains (like we have in Florida) even if you've added some fertilizer at time of planting.

You can use smart release fertilizer once a month during hot season, this one or similar:
Mango-Food - Smart Release Fruit Tree Booster.

But the most effective way to get a tropical tree to flowering and fruiting, is frequent applications of liquid fertilizer. We use Sunshine Boosters with every watering on our plants. They work great even on hard cases and weak plants, and you see the difference in a matter of weeks, sometimes even days.
We recommend the following fertilizer that contains all necessary elements for young fruit trees: SUNSHINE C-Cibus - Crop Nutrition Booster

SUNSHINE C-Cibus - Crop Nutrition Booster from Garden Series, or Combo Total Feed Collection - all nutrients in just one bottle, for fruit trees and edibles.

Chosing a good avocado tree

Q: I'm in coastal Broward County. I'm putting together an order on your web site, and one thing that I would like is an avocado tree. I'd like to have something as close to true "Hass" as possible. Which cultivar does well here in SE Florida, and is most like Hass in texture, creaminess, and flavor? I'm not a big fan of the yellow watery Florida avocados.

A: Mexican type of Avocado have dark skin and buttery texture, while Florida green fruit types (West Indian type, with smooth skin), have lots of delicious melting pulp, so it is a matter of preference.
In coastal Broward county you can grow a wide range of varieties since your climate is very mild, so you don't have select cold-hardy varieties like Winter Mexican, Brazos Belle or Joey, etc. Yet there are many interesting varieties that rare and much more exclusive than Hass, with the same, or even better, quality buttery fruit.

One of the most popular varieties - Brogdon, with red-purple colored pear-shaped fruit, very thin skin, and yellow buttery flesh. It is also very cold hardy.

Very interesting exotic avocado is Kampong - Sushi Avocado - see photo above. The flavor of this fruit very nice, oily, creamy, nutty, reminds of almonds. At the same time, it has solid consistency and if you cut a square it remains a shape of the square. It is the best Sushi Avocado! It tastes great as an appetizer when cut in squares with some shrimp cocktail sauce.

Three collectible varieties:
Anise - leaves that smell like Anise, very rare, the fruit is of excellent quality, creamy and buttery.
Bacon - a large Mexican variety with dark-skinned medium-sized fruits, and a rich creamy flavor. It has exceptional fruit that ripen in late fall and into spring, they are easy to peel and have a light, subtle flavor. Another outstanding feature of the Bacon avocado tree is its angelic sweeping branches which helps keep the tree shorter and easier to pick its fruit.
Nishikawa is a very hot seller! Oval fruit somewhat resembles Hass, but larger, and has very high oil content.

See all Avocado trees from our store

Recommended fertilizers:
Fruit Festival Plant Food - Super Crop Booster
Mango-Food - Smart Release Fruit Tree Booster