Tamarillo: The first fruits are here – how to spot the fruit set

Your tamarillo is flowering and forming its first small fruits – at the same time, aphids are infesting the leaves and shoots, while ants are swarming up the plant. This is no coincidence: ants use the sweet honeydew and can protect aphids from their natural predators. In this video, I'll show you the first fruits of my tree tomato, its rather inconspicuous blossoms, and the heavy aphid infestation. You'll also see how ants move among the aphids and why neighboring plants need to be checked as well. Ants are busy among the aphids, and you'll see why neighboring plants need to be monitored. ... In this video you'll learn: ▸ How to recognize the first fruit set on a tamarillo ▸ How blossoms and young fruits are arranged on the trusses ▸ Why tree tomatoes are particularly susceptible to aphids on soft shoots ▸ Why ants are an important indicator of hidden aphid colonies ▸ How honeydew, ants, and aphids are related ▸ Why the infestation can spread to neighboring plants ▸ Which gentle measures you should try first ▸ Which location and growing conditions are important for tamarillos Quick check: If you see ants on the trunk, check the undersides of leaves, young shoots, and flower buds. Sticky leaves, white molted skins, curled leaves, and densely packed small insects confirm your suspicion. Then immediately check the neighboring plants. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🍅 FIRST FRUITS ON THE TREE TOMATO ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The tree tomato is now botanically known as Solanum betaceum; Cyphomandra betacea is an older name. It belongs to the nightshade family, but it is not an ordinary garden tomato. The small flowers grow in clusters, from which several fruits can develop after successful fruit set. A tamarillo grown from seed can begin to bear fruit after two to three years under good conditions. In containers, warmth, light, water, nutrients, root space, and overwintering conditions greatly influence the growth rate. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🐜 WHY ANTS HELP APILES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Aphids suck sap from soft plant tissue and excrete sugary honeydew. Ants utilize this food source. In doing so, they often drive away ladybug larvae, lacewing larvae, and other natural predators of aphids. An ant trail on the trunk of a tree is therefore a warning sign. Follow the path upwards instead of just fighting individual ants. Often, the root cause lies on young shoots, the undersides of leaves, or flower heads. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💧 GENTLY REDUCE APELISMS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1. Thoroughly inspect the plant at least twice a week. 2. Remove small colonies with your fingers or crush them. 3. Rinse healthy plants with a strong jet of water early in the day. 4. Remove heavily infested shoot tips. 5. Protect natural predators and avoid broad-spectrum pesticides. 6. Disrupt ant trails so that beneficial insects can reach the aphids. 7. Avoid excessive nitrogen fertilization, as very soft growth encourages aphids. 8. Check neighboring plants and observe new arrivals separately at first. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📖 TECHNICAL BASIS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Royal Horticultural Society – Tamarillo, container cultivation, location, and fruiting onset: 👉 https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/300972/... University of California IPM – Aphids, honeydew, ants, and gentle control measures: 👉 https://ipm.ucanr.edu/home-and-landsc... University of Minnesota – Aphid identification, damage, and natural predators: 👉 https://extension.umn.edu/yard-and-ga... More plant knowledge on Gartenschlau: 👉 https://gartenschlau.com/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 Tamarillo with first Fruiting 00:30 Flowers and Fruit Set 01:00 Aphids on Young Shoots 01:30 Ants as a Warning Sign 02:00 Honeydew and Aphid Colonies 02:30 Check Neighboring Plants 03:00 Gentle Control Methods 03:30 Location and Care ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📱 DOCUMENTING ORCHIDS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ With the Orchid Hobby App, you can document the development, flowering, and care of your plants: 👉 https://apps.apple.com/de/app/orchide... ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📷 MY EQUIPMENT & RECOMMENDATIONS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▸ Nikon Z 50 KIT: https://link.amazon/B01Qrs6IB ▸ Smartphone for documentation: https://link.amazon/B06FOA9xI Affiliate links. If you buy through this link, you support the channel – at no extra cost to you. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💬 WRITE TO ME ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Has your tamarillo already flowered or set fruit – and are you also seeing aphids or ants? Write the age, location, pot size, and severity of the infestation in the comments. If this video helped you: Give it a thumbs up and subscribe. Tropicalgreen accompanies rare crops from the first fruit set to harvest and openly addresses any problems. #Tamarillo #TreeTomato #AphidControl