If you grow it from a seed, how long does it take a jackfruit to bear?

Carey McCain of CorJen Farm in Lakeland showed up in the chat of last night’s Goodstream to share his success growing a seedling jackfruit in Lakeland. Lakeland is too far north to grow jackfruit – or so we have been told – but so far, so good!

At two years old, his jackfruit seedling is blooming.

Pete Kanaris/GreenDreamsFL on YouTube reported in 2017 that his greenhouse-grown jackfruit was fruiting at 18 months of age:

It appears that jackfruit have the ability to bear fruit at an exceptionally young age compared to many other seedling fruit trees.

Here are more pictures of Corey’s jackfruit in Lakeland:

Note the flowers in the top two photos, and the shower head in the bottom photo. That is Corey’s frost protection system. On a freezing night, he can turn on the tap and keep the tree warm with a constant bath until the rains have stopped.

I asked about how he grew his jackfruit from seed and he wrote:

“From a fruit in a Oriental market. I originally planted 5 seeds directly in the spot. Cut worms took out 4 of them and one survived. The tree was almost destroyed by Irma. I covered it and put heat lamp inside for the 2018 freezes. It then grew insane last year as we had record breaking rain. Grew about 10 foot last year. We do not have a special microclimate on our property other than an awesome windbreak to the north from industrial buildings which you can see in the video. I forgot to mention we are near the airport if you know the location of Lakeland. On the far west side just outside of town. I monitor weather and microclimate on my property and we are often 1-3 degrees cooler than in the city. All my trees are on mounds because of extremely high water table and flooding. Very heavy mulching in large areas. The soil to build mounds is a muck soil, black and holds moisture well, bought from a local company, not typical Florida sugar sand. Most of our native, property soil is better than average Florida sugar sand. These contextual details certainly play a role in the trees vigorous growth. I plan to let the tree grow as big as it can, trying to get mass for added cold protection. One day it will get pruned from a freeze but I will protect the lower portion of the tree as much as possible. We had no freezes this year. God bless!”

At this point,I would probably stop that tree from getting much bigger, as a larger jackfruit tree is hard to keep protected.

As Fairchild Tropical Gardens shares:

“Jackfruit trees will form a stately, dense and rounded canopy with a minimum of input, but horticultural management is necessary to maintain a small, healthy and productive tree. With annual pruning the tree is easily maintained at a height and spread of six to eight feet. Pruning should be done once per year following harvest of the major crop, or towards the end of the growing season.”

Corey may want to just let it get huge, though. There’s nothing more beautiful than a full-grown jackfruit tree.

Reports I’ve read online claim it usually takes 3-5 years for a seedling jackfruit to bear fruit; however, it’s obvious that with good care it can make fruit earlier.

If you’re interested in started your own jackfruit from seed, in 2017 I posted a video on how I germinate jackfruit seeds:

I’m also planting jackfruit seeds on my new property, right in the ground so they get maximum root development:

When I was over at the land two days ago, I was pleased to see some of these seeds had sprouted. With proper care, I should have some fruit in just a couple of years.