Branch News

Rare Fruit Review 2010 now available

The latest edition of the Rare Fruit Review - 2010 is now available. Contact the treasurer if you wish to purchase a copy. Phone Jenny Tait 07 4157 9691. The Table of Contents is below:

ENJOY YOUR FRUIT � SPECIAL FEATURES
4 The Joy of Jakfruit
A step by step guide in how to prepare and eat a jakfruit.

6 Tangy Taste Sensation
Making the most of yellow mangosteens.

9 Fruit Farrago
Snippets about preparing fruit.

10 The Delights of Soursop
How to grow, handle, store and use a soursop.

13 Florida Conversation
David Chandlee talks to Florida rare fruit enthusiast, Steve Brady, about growing fruit that tastes the best.

17 Growing up in Brazil
Brazilians enjoyed their fruit in the 1960s and 1970s.

GROWING FRUIT

18 Subtropical Secret
The white sapote is the perfect choice in a sub-tropical orchard.

21 All in one package
The star apple gives fabulous foliage, flowers and fruit.

CULTURE

22 Home Grown Health
Take the time to learn how to improve your soil

25 Untimely Death
Is sour sap the culprit? Eddie Dunn discusses the factors which may cause unexplained death of young trees.

EXPLORATION

27 Serendipity in Solomon Islands
Old orchard research stations lost to the jungle are rediscovered, as part of an AusAid program.

28 Breadfruit Matters
Bits and pieces about breadfruit

30 World Traveller
Mango is considered to be the most popular fruit in the world.

32 Tropical exposure
Ray Johnson journeys to the tropical climate of Far North Queensland.

33 Guatamalan Adventure
An Australian rambutan grower describes her recent visit to Central America

PROCESSING

35 Creative Crisps
A new way to market sweet potatoes
:arrow:

Mackay Meeting Info

The next meeting for the Mackay Branch will be held on Sunday 1st August as an outdoor meeting in the Proserpine area. For information or directions please phone Paul 49598671

ABC Gardening Magazine - Rare Fruit Article

The april edition of the ABC Gardening magazine has a 6 page story on Cape Trib Exotic Fruit Farm.
You can read the story here, written by Jennifer Stackhouse.

Hinkler Christmas Meeting

The Christmas meeting of the Hinkler Branch was hosted at Ted and Daphne Harris. Ted can be seen offering a raspberry

New Edition - Rare Fruit Review - 2009 - Now availabale

Price is $8 plus postage

To buy a copy contact

Jenny Tait

Phone 07 4157 9691
or email treasurer@rarefruitaustralia.org

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COLLECTIONS - SPECIAL FEATURES
Fruit Fantasies
Add some Artocarpus to your collection

Rambutan Reminiscence
Colin Gray discusses the different rambutan varieties that were collected
in the 1980s

Treasure Trove
The amazing Flecker Botanic Gardens

Database Challenge
Learn about efforts to record and track tropical food plants

Inside the Palmetum
Australia’s largest collection of palms thrives in a fascinating
habitat

Delicious Dwarves
This is not a cannibal’s recipe or fairytale

Creating a Collection
Guidelines and recommendations on getting started

FRUIT
Fruit of Kings
The kepel could only be consumed by royalty in Indonesia

Dragonfruit Destiny
Pitaya exported from Mexico to Vietnam, becomes a major crop

CULTURE
Getting Started
Ray Johnston starts his own collection at Gin Gin, Queensland

Know your Enemy
Dan Papacek explains how to control fruit fly

Do you have Borers?
Look for the evidence and save your trees

Facing up to Frost
Some practical ideas to survive the next big frost

Mango Flowering
Problems with fruit set in cool districts

PROCESSING
Quick and Easy
Make coffee from your own beans

BOOK REVIEWS
Tropical Gardener’s Gourmet Guide
Edible Water Gardens

Photos from the RFCA AGM 2008

MOSSMAN BASE FOR RARE FRUIT MEETING

Rare Fruit Australia�s Annual General Meeting in March 2008 attracted a contingent of more than 60 fruit and vegetable enthusiasts from branches along Queensland�s east coast.

Host branch, Mossman, organised inspections of three distinctly different properties during the two-day event.

The Botanical Ark, a private botanical garden in beautiful Whyanbeel Valley, near Mossman, featured an amazing tropical rainforest with many rare and endangered tropical plants from around the world. Alan and Susie Carle started their project more than 24 years ago, first as a flower farm, and in 1990 as private ethno-botanical gardens. The Carles regularly travel the tropical regions of the world, with a special interest in plants that indigenous rainforest cultures have and still use for their foods, spices, shelter, medicine, cosmetics, fibres, oils, dyes � their everyday needs.

Alan and Susie escorted Rare Fruit Australia members on a tour, pointing out properties of various trees, shrubs and vines � along with a warning against uninvited sampling of fruits and berries, as many in their collection are quite poisonous. However, Alan said their breadfruit trees were probably the property�s most useful, as they provided a steady, reliable and ample supply of quality food.

Cape Trib Farmstay, Cape Tribulation, was established by Colin and Dawn Gray in 1981, as a tropical exotic fruit orchard on a former historic grazing property, clearing in 1934. With fruit seeds collected from around the world, they planted more than 10 hectares of orchards while raising four young children in �pioneering conditions�.

The farm�s tropical location and atmosphere was enhanced by occasional showers during the visit by Rare Fruit Australia members � after all, it is set in a rainforest.

The farm�s main commercial crops � durian, mangosteen and rambutan � are well represented amongst more than 50 different species of tropical fruit trees. Following orchard devastation by Cyclone Rona in 1999, Colin and Dawn opted to diversify and built a number of comfortable farmstay cabins for visitors.

Cape Trib Exotic Fruit Farm, just a short distance away, hosted a sausage sizzle and farm walk for Rare Fruit Australia visitors. Alison and Digby Gotts �found� Cape Tribulation in January 1986 while travelling from Melbourne to take up teaching positions in Darwin. They fell in love with the amazing area, particularly the rainforest, isolation and warm climate � and the extraordinary variety of unusual fruit that flourished there.

They have chosen to establish an organic fruit farm and apply the philosophy of permaculture. Digby and Alison said they needed to develop a system which copied the rainforest and provided a supply of nutrients to the orchard trees through rotting material and vegetative matter. Through field experiments, they have found some trees are more suitable to the area than others, with delicious mangosteen a proven winner in the extremely rocky soil.

Rare Fruit Review 2008 now available

The latest edition of the Rare Fruit Review is now available and will be posted out to branches and members shortly. The theme is ‘In My Backyard’ with articles on

Garden Design
Permaculture
Plant Design Lists
Adels Grove
Tropical Food Trail
Dwarf Coconuts
New Rare Fruit
Organic Conversion
The Marula Tree
Improving orchard soil
School vegetable gardens
AND MORE.

Extra copies are available for sale to non RFCA members at $8 per copy plus postage.
Email webmanager@rarefruitaustralia.org if you wish to purchase a copy

Mackay Branch Display at the Botanic Gardens, 21st April 2007

Shirley Kerle, president of the Mackay Branch reports on the day:

It was a fine, sunny and very pleasant Sunday. I had lots of willing workers to help with the setting up of the display and I think it looked very colourful. It was a little quite to start with but soon became busy with a steady stream of visitors eager to taste the fruit on offer. This included jakfruit (fresh, dried & frozen), longan, ruby grapefruit, lemonade fruit, breadfruit chips, granadilla, governors plum and red mombin (even though these had been frozen the majority of the visitors thought they were really nice). I think the most popular fruit was the chempedak as I could hardly keep the plate topped up.

There was also pink lime, Glycosmis pentaphylla, the fruit of a little native plant which created lots of interest. Dale said there was a very close relative, Glycosmis trifoliata, growing in the gardens which bore a similar edible fruit.

The fruit of the yellow pitaya, sometimes known as dragon fruit, was a very welcome addition to the table. Of course we had the old party trick, a miracle fruit followed by a slice of lime.

We were kept busy answering lots of questions but I also learnt that the nice fresh young tips of the saba nut tree are edible. I tried these and found that not only are they edible (I�m still alive and writing this report) but they are also quite tasty. Only eat the very fresh young, pale green tips and you�ll be pleasantly surprised.

Winners are Grinners

Ray Zillmann was the over all winner of the Mackay Branch fruit & cooking competition for 2006. Ray got to take home the Marion Burns perpetual trophy for the second time.

Ray is a very deserving winner as it�s not unusual for him to have something in each of the three different categories of the competition at each meeting.

Ray is always ready to volunteer his help when needed and always donates lots of goodies for our auction.