Simple tips on how to grow Cherimoya Tree

The origin of Cherimoya tree can be traced from Columbia. This fruits are appreciated for their smooth texture and sweet pear-like flavor. It is very difficult to actually see Cherimoya fruit in grocery stores because it has a short shelf life, if you can grow your on Cherimoya tree you will really enjoy the fruit. One of the most difficult thing about growing cherimoyas tree is fertilizing the flowers. Actually the male and female parts of the flowers mature at different times so the flowers cannot fertilize themselves.  Below are the simple tips on how to grow Cherimoya tree from seed.

Tips on how to grow Cherimoya tree

1. You need to clear a sunny location, the location must have a well-drained soil. Although in some major coastal areas, this tree need shelter from strong winds that can damage the plant. This tree also need protection from a combination of high heat and strong sunlight, which can actually burn the foliage. Don’t plant the cherimoyas tree near a wall that can reflect heat.
2. You need to transplant cherimoyas tree into the chosen location. Make sure you keep the soil level of the cherimoyas tree even with the level of the surrounding soil, and also backfill it with dirt that is removed from the hole without amending it in any way.  
3. The new planted cherimoyas tree need to be water slowly and deeply, make sure you allow as much water as possible to sink into the soil.
4. Make sure you space additional cherimoyas tree 25 to 30 feet apart.
5. The young cherimoyas tree need to be water every 15 to 20 days during the growing season, you can allow a 4 month dormancy in winter when the cherimoyas tree is not watered. You can discontinue the watering of the mature cherimoyas tree when the fruit is fully ripe.
6. Try as much as possible to fertilize the young cherimoyas trees twice each year with 10-8-6 fertilizer in six inch deep trenches dug around the cherimoyas tree at a distance of five feet from the trunk. You can use 1/2 pound of fertilizer when the tree is 6 months old and one pound when it is a year old. Make sure you feed the cherimoyas tree twice with one pound of fertilizer in the second year. You can switch to one pound of 6-10-8 fertilizer for each feeding in the 3rd year and increase the feeding by one pound each year until you are using five pounds of fertilizer at each feeding.
7. Try and prune the cherimoyas tree to 2 main lateral branches with angles of at least sixty degrees from the trunk. Make sure you remove two-thirds of the new growth each year. Cherimoyas tree are capable of growing as much as thirty feet tall, although they are usually pruned much shorter. In most case severe pruning makes fertilizing the flowers and harvesting the cherimoyas fruit easier.
8. Make sure you fertilize the flowers when they bloom. Try and remove the pollen from the flowers by removing the tan anthers that are covered with white pollen with tweezers and also place them in a small container. You can apply the pollen to a mature stigma of another flower with a small, soft paintbrush. The stigma is actually a white sticky structure inside the flower.
9. Try as much as possible to repeat the pollination process every 3 to 5 days.

The following are some of the things you will need;

• You need fertilizer
• You need hand pruners
• You need long-handled pruners
• You need tweezers
• You need small container

Don’t forget that the stigma are most receptive to fertilization with pollen early in the morning. The pollen can be store in a sealed plastic container overnight if necessary.

Furthermore, don’t forget that the leaves, the seeds and the wood of cherimoya trees really contain alkaloids that are considered poisonous if actually eaten, although there is actually no danger in handling these plant parts.