carambola

Anonymous starts with ...
i bought a star fruit (carambola) about 2 weeks ago but it is looking rather sad
the leaves will not spread out can any one help me!! i live in pooraka south australia

Anonymous says...
thank you!!! i thought my plant was dying

John says...
Hello Mr Anonymous, mine has been in for 3 weeks now and is doing the same except for some burnt leaves from some 40c heat the other day. In Indo they do handle just the morning sun.

John says...
The leaves and branches will grow back. If your in SA give them a month coarse of pot ash and plent of water but watch out for wet feet, they dont like.

Shaun says...
How long will it take a seedling to produce fruit?
Is there any particular variety of Carambola that does better than the others in Australia?

Scott G says...
I did a lot of searching for info about Carambola before I bought mine. There seemed to be very little information out there. On the web I eventually found a partial list of what the difference in the fruits was but nothing about how the plants differed in any other way.

With so little info I felt I couldn't make an informed decision about what would do best in my area. So I bought whatever variety I came accross. It is doing well (no doubt thanks to the very wet summer we have just had here). It produced 3 fruits within a few months of putting it in the ground!

I agree with John - they like lots of water.

Anonymous says...
will a carambola survive an adelaide winter?

Anonymous says...
will shade cloth protect a carambola from heat and frost?

Scott G says...
For the record here are details of my Carambola that is doing very well.

It is on a small mound in sloping heavy clay soil with a good layer of organic material near the top. And lots of mulch. This is one of the wettest parts of my garden.

It receives a little shade in various parts of the day due to the neighbours huge palm trees. I suspect it is also in one of the mildest temperature ranged parts of my garden. Temperature from about 7 to 37.

The planted is a grafted type "Fwang Tung". I am not sure what the rootstock is.

I planted it late spring and had 3 fruits by late summer. The fruits were tastey. It is not near any other Carambola to my knowledge so it is self polinating.

After 5 months in the ground (through a wet summer) it is about 1.4m tall by 1m wide. It has an open semi-weeping form and is covered with lush leaves and still retains many of the original leaves that it had when I bought it.

The soil has had a heavy application of gypsum and light applications of Dynamic Lifter and blood and bone.

I am very happy with this plant.

Anonymous says...
between what temperatures do carambola grow? what temperatures can they handle?

Shaun says...
Does anyone know whether Carambola Arkin variety is self-pollinationf? .....
I read that some carambola need cross-pollination.

BTW, what is "polyembronic" ??

Anonymous says...
if a seedling is polyemboric it will be the same as the parent plant

Anonymous says...
do they lose their leaves in winter? as mine are.

Dekka says...
To clarify my last post about polyembryonic seed, there is a tendency for these to be true-to-type but no guarantee as one embryo in the seed is often a true sexual embryo having genetic characteristics of the parents. These are often less vigorous than the asexual seedlings but in some species the reverse is the case.
On the subject of Carambola from seed, I saw a study done by a group called Echo where they planted seven seeds from a very sweet Carambola 'Arkin' and ended up with only one sweet variety. The rest were very sour and all had undesirable fruit-shape characteristics.

Shaun says...
I got an Arkin Carambolas from Joe @ Tass-1-tree (WA) ....
do I need to buy another variety to cross pollinate so that I get fruits ?
Has anyone got any info on this subject?
Thnx

Shaun says...
Thanks for your response, Yong.
Which area of Perth are you located?
If Carambola/Star-fruit plants need cross-pollination, then manual pollination may not work if you only have 1 plant or 1 variety.

My plant is still very small (approx 1m tall) and I intend to keep it planted in a pot (kind of like a 'bonsai') as I only got a very small court yard.

Hope to have comments from others who had experience with Carambola.

Tran says...
Like Yong's tree. mine is about the same age in a big pot under veranda. When the tree first arrived it had some little fruits but has been flowered ever seen. This year I don't cover up the soil and give it a bucket of water a week and it is still flowering in the cold Melbourne weather. I was told Kary type does not need polination and one book said so but I am still waiting.

Yong says...
Shaun, I live in Willetton on a 700m2 block. Met up with another fellow member of the Sub-tropical Fruit Club in Perth, who also has a star fruit tree and suggested that we swap plant material and have 2 varieties on 1 tree hopefully solve this cross pollination problem.

Shaun says...
Hi Yong,
Thnx for responding to my post.

1) How do I contact the Sub-tropical Fruit Club in Perth, please?

2) What variety have you got? ... and how do I get "2 varieties on 1 tree".

3) May I get in touch with you, please ?

Cheers !!

peter says...
the rare fruit society of adelaide
have a whats fruited in s.a. section
and say that the carambola has not
fruited here.
your only hope is probably to build
a poly house around it.

peter says...
no poly house 0
with poly house 50/50
im trying some pawpaw and other
stuff in a glasshouse which are
doing ok. pawpaws have little fruits.

Anonymous says...
peter will it grow without fruiting in adelaide?

Anonymous says...
i am interested that they will grow in adelaide?i do not care if they fruit or not.

HappyEarth says...
I dont think thats true. Ive seen a few single, isolated carambolas that have been loaded with fruits.

Rich
www.happyearth.com.au

Anonymous says...
john from SA How old are your trees?

John says...
My Boabs have not sprouted yet, so its not hot enough !

peter says...
what variety carambola would grow the best in adelaide? i have a grafted kary at the moment and would like to buy another but do not want to waste my money on something that will die any advice would be helpful

RolFlor a says...
CALORIE-DEFICIENT CARAMBOLA : Low calorie and low taste fruit.
Great for losing weight.
All-you-can-eat, weight/fat loss food.

Pictures - Click to enlarge
Picture: 1

Shaun says...
My Arkin Carambola had spring back to live during these hot spell, and has lots of leaves now ....
it was in a rather sorry state in late winter to mid-spring.

Yong, if you are reading this post, I'll try to contact you the next time I get a day off in Perth, to visit your garden/orchard.
I only have your work telephone .... have you got a mobile number, pls email it to me as you got my email address.

Cheers !!

Yong says...
Shaun, tried emailed you but getting 'UNDELIVERED' error. My mobile is 0403 157 233.

denise says...
Outsides of the tropics the carambola requires more shade and shelter than in the tropics. This has to be balanced with winter warmth,If it is under a shelter tree it will get summer shade and low winter sun. In Auckland I have seen young ones fruiting happily in a commercial glasshouse but they wouldnt fruit in my humid plastic tunnelhouse, It is also common that in cooler climates tropical fruit trees take thier time to grow, become hardy and also to fruit.

denise says...
Outsides of the tropics the carambola requires more shade and shelter than in the tropics. This has to be balanced with winter warmth,If it is under a shelter tree it will get summer shade and low winter sun. In Auckland I have seen young ones fruiting happily in a commercial glasshouse but they wouldnt fruit in my humid plastic tunnelhouse, It is also common that in cooler climates tropical fruit trees take thier time to grow, become hardy and also to fruit.

denise says...
Hi David, I believe you are refering to the late Loui Trap, a dutch fella I think. He also planted at the airport an Oyster nut vine that I gave him. All the plants there were casualties of development and the small trial block is overgrown with little left. Also the 1980's govt. trial collection at the DSIR Mt Albert was liquidated. There is a small group of us left but with recent warmer weather and asian immigrants There is a good outlook for the interest in tropical fruit growing.

David says...
Thanks Denise ,yes that was his name i used to work for Sanitarium in pah rd,royal oak Knew Loui and his wife very well nice chap sorry to here of his passing,he and i would talk at length about rare fruit he had so many things growing at his home,like star fruit ,star apples,sapodilla and many more, we used to live on richardson rd mt albert from 86 to 90, when i got transfered back here .The lychee tree i got was from a nursery in remuera, good sized tree. gave that to Loui before i left not sure if it did any good.Tell me more about your interest in fruit growing.Regards David

Yong says...
Just an update on the successful grafting back in early December '08, the pruning back of some of the more dominant branches to allow for better taking off of the grafted wood, must have triggered its survival instincts and started flowering profusely on branches below where I pruned. Mind you the grafted wood is not matured enough to start flowering yet.
But I'm delighted to see a single tiny fruit actually formed slightly bigger than the size of a pea seed.
I guessed the dry summer could have killed off most of the flowers or even formed fruit. I remember someone in the forum said starfruit needs fair bit of watering.

Shaun says...
My carambola tree in a pot will be going through its 2nd winter this year ....
it survived last year, and I hope it will survive this winter too, now that it is bigger.

kim says...
Hi Michael,
I am in Brisbane and have a Fwang Tung growing for the last 3 years. It has produced fruits the last two years and this year, we had more than 30 fruits. The fruits are large (15cm long) very sweet and no fibres.

Shaun says...
My Carambola Arkin did survive this winter .... has new leaf-shoots sprouting out !!!

Just 1 question .... my Carambola is a grafted plant ( I could see the graft joint) ....
however, the rootstock is NOT growing as fast as the actual plant (rootstock seems skinnier than the actual plant) ......
so, it is now 'top-heavy' --> is there anything I cold do to make the rootstock grow so that the plant is more proportional ??

Yong says...
Just an update, last season I had 3 fruits but very small. One was about 70mm long but partly chewed by some insects or birds, and other 2 were only 30mm long, hardly a mouthful. Fruits were disposed of.

I've modified watering scheme to one which has 4 drip outlets around the root zone and buried by heavy mulch to preserve moisture in the soil and save water. I'll see if this will make a difference.

I also noticed the flowers are also very small, not attracting enough bees to help pollinate.

At the moment, the tree is full of young buds waiting to take off with the warmer weather.