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Reply about fruit trees surviving on their own in a tropical jungle
I can't recall seeing fruits commonly grown, in the rainforest, but that
might be because the jungle is such a tightly knit place, so jammed with
growth that an invader would hardly make it.
But, on the other hand, in a tropical country, nearly every native hut is
surrounded by fruit and nut trees, all tangled up, just like the jungle, with
all kinds of edible crops. Each homeowner wants his shack to be supplied with
all the kinds of plants used in daily meals--except rice, which requires
special swampland.
So I may have not been at the right spots to see ordinarily utilized fruit
trees survive in a jungle. Each hut, close to another hut, and each
surrounded by plantings, comprised a jungle right there, so in that sense,
the answer is yes.
People did not cut down trees, except those needed for bulding their houses.
Lumber, such as sawn, smooth boards, were not made--no big sawmills in such
primitive country. It was easier to use palm leaves for thatch, or make
bricks out of red laterite clay.
But I did read a very interesting book telling about frut trees dating from
gold rush days, surviving to old age and bearing like mad. That is
understandable, because the organic matter collected, undisturbed, for the
100 intervening years, and that, along with no disturbance of the ecology,
made it possible for abundant, fruitful growth.
Everyonce in a while I see a story about very old apple orchards, for
example, that someone has cleaned up, trimming off dead branches, mulching
thickly and getting those trees back to life. I have also seen a peach tree
come back to exuberant bearing, when thickly mulched with strawy manure, way
out past the dripline.
So it is the organic matter collected in quantity, I think, that makes the
difference, so it should be easy for a tree to survive, caught in a
surrounding of wild growth. The only problem for a fruit tree would be lack
of sunlight, if too crowded. That is why jungle trees have very high
crowns--the trunks bare way up high.
It is true, most people think correct pruning is the only way to get good
fruiting, and there are many examples. Yet I have seen trees loaded that have
never been pruned. A litchi or mango tree, huge, spreading, dripping with
fruit, where no natives ever even heard of pruning tools. It has to be the
undisturbed soil that accumulates its own goodies, so to speak, over the
years.