The other day, I was told that one of my friends in west Kendall, Marcial Nieves, had fruited a breadfruit tree, Artocarpus communis. Marcial is a tropical fruit enthusiast who planted a breadfruit or "Panapen" tree in his back yard from cuttings he obtained from Puerto Rico in 1987. I can say that I was impressed since this is one of the rarest fruitings to occur in South Florida, especially in the colder western side of the county.

So on December 11 th I took a drive out to Marcial's place to see this 'miracle tree' and was delighted to find that this large tree (20 feet tall with a 15 foot spread) had indeed set a nice amount offruit. We were able to spot eight fruit of differing sizes. I was then told that he had picked and eaten several others the previous week. He told me that the fruit he had already picked, from his seedless variety, weighted about two pounds and had an excellent flavor with very little unedible pulp.

The main tree was originally planted in 1987 and grew until the winter of 1989, which froze the tree completely down to the ground. However, the next spring, the emerging shoots started to grow vigorously and continued year after year (thanks to some mild winters) until if first flowered during the summer of 1994. This proves that you can't give up on your trees after a freeze! A second smaller tree is growing only a few feet away from the original, and came up as a root sucker. This second tree has yet to flower.

Marcial, who is very knowledgeable about tropical fruit trees states that the Breadfruit demands very little of his time and has very few pests. Her waters it well and feeds the tree with basic 6-6-6 and points out that he has a very heavy layer of leaf mulch about the trunk. He thinks that this mulch greatly helps the Breadfruit to grow and flourish. I guess that you can't argue with his results! The tree was planted in a protected location on his property, but has been wind burned several times during winter storms, however, it always recovers nicely. Marcial realizes that another hard freeze could come around at any time, but he is confident that this incredible tree will pull through again.