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kadakuda

Pausinystalia yohimbe cultivation.

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My location is southern Taiwan, about 22.2 N. i looked on goggle earth an looks around like "St. Lawrence" or "Clairview".

This land is a little warmer than my older farm now and is nice and snuggled near the moutnains. lowest temp i have heard of is 12C at night on every freaky storms (our other farm has hit 7C once, but usually over 14C).

Iboga grows well here, winter they slow down a lot but they do ok then. The biggest problem i had with iboga is they cannot handle wet feet in the form of floods. They can take all teh rain given, but not actual floods on their roots. As the ground here has a lot of clay (though a good nice softer 1' on top now) and never dries even in winter with no rain for months. but summer, when the iboga died, gets floods of 1-5 feet but never last more than 3 days.

now i have some plants from SAB (Thanks guys, looking good as always) i want to start planning something out. seen a si only have 2 small ones, i have a lot of time before i start worrying about a small field of them, but if this isnt going to work, i should start looking for land in the mountains where floods are not an issue.

and as an aside, is coco cool with these? I usually use a sand/pumice (whichever i have handy) mixed with coco and some good dirt from the farm (clay/castings)

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yohimbe in my cultivation, was a difficult tree to grow for me, i guess it hates over and underwatering...

to change your strata by adding pumic or other friable materials, is ok but, wastefull to resources, at least in the long run.

this is a long shot but, in your case i would:

just create a mound of your own native soil, but, add a lot of drainage features (pipes)!! :)

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yohimbe is difficult except in the wet tropics. It needs to have high humidity and high temps. The tropial conditions in far northern australia are only JUST enough to keep it happy. Aywhere south and the plant will be very slow and will need help.

Most rainforest trees do not root into clay easily, but rather send long roots into the mulch layer that forms in every rainforest. If you are completely flat then the only tress that will thrive are those used to lowland and swamp condition. All it takes is a bit of a hill - just enough for the water to run off. you could probably create one on your farm for the sensitive plants. But better is to have a gentle slope so it can never flood.

btw, kratom doesn't mind wet feet.

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Thanks T and PH, very helpful. Good to know about the clay. Looks like the new place will be getting bulldozed in the beginning. old farm is impossible due to neighbors land as it is long and skinny (only 14m wide) and the heavy summer rains would make it flat again in 2 years and wash away any plants i planted on it ( i tried some smaller mounds a while ago and they are long gone).

Now im worried about winter after you mention that. Think they might be best planted under a shade tree and let them grow through it? i usually use either banana for strong shade (like betel nut youngins) or tamarind for lighter shade/more light if the plant to be shaded isnt too fast a grower.

well, going to go get some nice rich topsoil from a spot around me in the forest, and mix it with some castings and coco for these guys.

as an aside, when i say clay i mean the literal sense of particle size not clay as in i can dig it and make myself an ashtray. teh soil is heavy for sure, but after a few years of pretty heavy mulching, there is 1-3 feet of good topsoil mixed with clay that i would say is about 80% worm casting balls, roots, and organic debris. think thats deep enough a top soil fo rthem to get an anchor in during high wind?

T, assuming their roots have anchored and the trunk and top part of the tap root are above flood levels, are teh roots going down ok to be soaked? we get typhoons here and any plant that just has roots in the upper surface quickly becomes mushroom food on the ground. so what i have been doing sometimes is digging narrow deep holes way down and filling them with coco to let roots grow down and anchor better. so far as i can tell, it has worked decently.

i have a couple durian growing there now, but this will be their first summer in ground, so not sure if the floods will do much.

one last Q. you guys mention they need help in non super hot tropical areas. these potted plants or in ground? If in pots, i get it, but if in ground, what sort of help do you provide? mostly shading when young?

this morning i walked to th e roof to find my roof is a small swimming pol and my stairs the only way for water to escape. these plants were sitting soaked and almost floating, damn. time to move them under cover and on benches.

thanks again :)

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the problem about flooding plant is that roots need oxygen to live. swamp plants are adapted to cope without this and receive their minimal oxygen via transport from above. Most plants can't do this. it's really a trial and error thing wo work out how long each plant can handle being submerged.

in subtropical areas yohimbe needs to be kept in pots or it won't make it through the first few years. if you have a few warm winters then this can be used to establish it in the ground and it will become less sensitive with each year of woody insulation it adds.

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indeed, cheers man. wealth of info there :)

so, now i am rethinking things. taiwan has had really bad rains this last week starting last saturday and in some areas like here keep going. i checked my farm today and its still about 90cm deep in water.....after 6 full days. the longest flood prior to now was 7 days, but its raining everyday here still and i dont see it stopping this weekend. I have been finding out which plants are able to do floods well. surprisingly the psychotria and tabernaemontana along with many others are easily as flood tolerant as kratom, although there is a size advantage with kratom and deeper flooding.

so.

for now, how hot do you think yohimbe can take it? i am thinking of putting small plants in greenhouse but the worry there is too hot. it can reach 60C, and my cactus do fine but not sure about this one. i can put a fan there and keep it under 50C for sure, but is 50C too hot still you think? it is a very humid 50.

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yohimbe happily takes 40C all the time. that's the normal temp in it's natural habitat. As long as you keep it humid, shady and well watered I would assume it can handle a lot more than that.

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