Questions About Jaboticaba

[KayaMooney]

I have this Jaboticaba, well I guess you could call it two as it looks to be two trees that have grown together. I want to train the left one as a bonsai and keep the other mainly for fruit.

How well do these handle violent root work? If I wanted to train them as two separate trees I would most likely have to saw them in half where they emerge from the soil. Could they handle this?

Lastly, how well do they bud back and could it handle being chopped very low at the same time that it had this root work done?

This was cross posted from the fruiting trees forum.

 

[tmpgh]

I've never worked on anything like this, so I have no advice. cool looking tree though. Good luck.

 

[Don Blackmond]

My experience has been that you can take the roots back substantially. They are vigorous growers and respond well to hard pruning and heavy root work. Heat and humidity are your friends afterwards. I can't say what you can do without seeing the tree out of the pot and soil removed, however if the root system is well developed then you should be just fine separating the two trunks, even if you need to saw them apart.

As a point of reference here is a photo of one I used to have but since sold.

 

[KayaMooney]

My experience has been that you can take the roots back substantially. They are vigorous growers and respond well to hard pruning and heavy root work. Heat and humidity are your friends afterwards. I can't say what you can do without seeing the tree out of the pot and soil removed, however if the root system is well developed then you should be just fine separating the two trunks, even if you need to saw them apart.

As a point of reference here is a photo of one I used to have but since sold.

Wow, that's a very well developed Jaboticaba. Most of the ones I've seen have been on the sparse side of things as far as ramification goes but your is great. I'm In Florida so heat and humidity is just about all we have. Any experience with air layering these? Might as well get as many trees out of it as possible. This is where I was thinking of making the cuts for when i reduce the tree, does that look about right?

 

[Cmanz]

I would consider leaving the trees together. They both have good movement that complement each other well.

 

[KayaMooney]

I would consider leaving the trees together. They both have good movement that complement each other well.

Maybe the photos make it seem that way but they don't compliment each other very well and I specified that I want to grow one just for fruit and train the other as a bonsai.