Butia fruit size

[8B palms]

I am sure this topic has been discussed at length. So I recently visited some friends at Edisto Iskand in South Carolina. It’s for sure an 8b if not 9a climate zone. Lots of palms, washingtonia, CIDP, euro fan palms, sabals, saw palmettos, and many butia’s
I am sure is happens everywhere and I simply have not noticed but there is very wide discrepancy in the size of butia fruit (fleshy part).The size of the seed contained within is similar. Is this just genetics, some palms getting fertilized better than others or dependent on how many spathes with fruit the palm produces at any one time. I would like to get peoples thoughts.

[Harry’s Palms]

The one time my very large Butia Odorata produced fruit they were about the size of a Syagrus R. or Queen Palm seed. Similar to the large one on the right. I don’t fertilize but I water frequently. I imagine there are variations on fruit , like other trees . Nice display ! Did you taste them ? Delicious , very sweet. I was trimming mine yesterday and noticed it is fruiting again , the squirrels will be back…. Harry

[Las Palmas Norte]

Fruit larger vs small, seed size similar? A possible explanation may lie in the amount of watering/rain available during the fruiting phase.

[PalmsInBaltimore]

I think the watering is definitely one factor. Bigger fruit would definitely require more water to be drawn up from the groun into the inflorescence. Also, maybe it's possible the source/sink ratio is significantly different between the two palms. 

Carbohydrate sources are the leaves when they photosynthesize and create sugars.

Carbohydrate sinks are basically everything else that the plant needs to grow: roots, stem, new spears of petiole and leaf that have to be pushed out, and flowers and (after pollination) fruits. In the sinks, sugars are either used for growth (flowers, new leaves, upward stem growth, root growth) or they are stored (as starches in the roots and stem, in the case of palms).

The ratio of source strength to sink strength is very important. The palm with the larger fruit may have had a fuller canopy and more leaves (higher source strength). Or it may have had more starches and sugars stored already in reserve in the roots and stem, which are then mobilized to produce bigger, juicier, sugary fruits after pollination. It's the same reason why, with other plants like flowering vines, pinching off the flowers will boost leaf production but pruning the top leaf growth (for example, with tomatoes) speeds fruit ripening.

[N8ALLRIGHT]

Have butia been domesticated for a long time? We grow palms primarily for aesthetics, back in the day it was about survival so I would think that selection for larger fruit would have been a priority. Compare most any fruit or vegetable from your grocery store and then look at a wild one. I'm not saying it's not environment, very well could be. It could also be that one butia is "wilder" than the other. Or I could be full of s#!t, I don't know, just my thoughts 

[Laaz]

Look here. 

 

[8B palms]

Hi Laaz,

This very fascinating thank you for sharing that. 

[Scott W]

I found a similar experience on a Butia in a nearby neighborhood.  Huge fruit but to.my surprise very large seed as compared to other Butia nearby. 

So I harvested, cleaned and germinated them.  Seedlings are a nice size already as well.  Part of me thinks hybrid...but probably not.

[Alberto]

There is certainly difference in fruit size

 At home I have an old big " wild type" Butia eriospatha with small and more fibrous fruits. There are some selected varieties with bigger fruits, also juicier and no fibres.