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Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-531
Kei Apple
Dovyalis caffra
Kei Apple is a spiny, evergreen African shrub planted as a stock-proof, animal-proof hedge that also blocks wind and gives privacy year-round. Its bright yellow, apricot-flavoured fruit is too sharply acidic to eat raw, but the pulp is unusually rich in pectin, making it a reliable home source of setting agent for jams and jellies from lower-pectin fruit. The plant is dioecious, so a lone specimen never fruits - one male pollinates about thirty females - which also means simply not planting or removing males stops it from setting seed at all.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 9–11
- Soil
- Sand · Loam
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moderate
Vertical layer
Sub-Canopy- Soil pH
- 5–7
- Plant type
- Evergreen Tree
- Mature height
- 10–29.5 ft
- Mature spread
- 5–20 ft
- Plant spacing
- 4.9–6.6 ft
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Seed
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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