How to Make Miracle Fruit Bear
Ripe miracle fruit Synsepalum dulcificum
Click to enlarge.
A common question asked and searched for with little success by people growing miracle fruit Synsepalum dulcificum is how to make an apparently healthy yet unproductive miracle fruit bear fruit?
When asked, the nurserymen who sell miracle fruit shrug their shoulders and say their miracle fruit plants in the greenhouse typically have fruit. I had the same problem with a miracle fruit I bought for my mother and will describe what I did to make her plant seen at right bear abundandly.
Much has already been written about miracle fruit needing rich, acidic soil that is moist but not soggy, shade, humid air, frost protection, etc. The following is how I grow my mom's miracle fruit:
- Soil: 100 percent premium potting mix. I used "Jungle Growth"
- Container: 15 gallon container but smaller sized containers are fine. Many plant miracle fruit directly in the ground.
- Location: The container sits beneath a live oak tree on Florida's eastern coast just a few hundred meters from the Atlantic Ocean. The plant gets filtered sunlight most of the day with direct sun in the early morning and late afternoon. A steady breeze from the east containing some amount of salt spray is usually present.
- Water: Overspray from lawn irrigation (well water) and rain
- Fertilizer: 2x per year with a small amount of citrus nut fertilizer and 4x per year with a "bloom special" type fertilizer designed to produce blooms. Iron as needed.
- Pests: Aphids are about the only insect pest I've had and are easily controlled with common inseticides sold at garden centers.
- Rust: The miracle fruit does occasionally get some leaf rust which is easily controlled with a fungicidal sprays sold at garden centers.
You Need to be the Bee
Hand pollination by inserting tip of brush inside each flower.
Click to enlarge.
After about two years of trying different things, the answer in my case appeared to be lack of a pollinator. I noticed that I never saw an insect on the flowers that might qualify as a pollinator. The miracle fruit is self fruiting but the flowers are quite small and I observed that the flowers never seemed to open as I assumed they would.
On the chance that mine as a single plant wasn't getting pollinated, I rolled up a piece of tissue and touched the end to the tip of several flowers. I pressed in enough that the tip of the rolled tissue got inside the tip of the petals. Perhaps two or three weeks later, I noticed green miracle fruit berries where I previously hand pollinated. Viola!
