Seedless fruits

During the past few days we have been celebrating what is called 'Chinese New Year' in Malaysia and Singapore, 'Spring Festival' in China and 'Tet' in Vietnam. In Malaysia and Singapore, lots of mandarin oranges are consumed during this festival. This year I have been struck by the fact that most of the mandarin oranges are seedless. If mandarin oranges can be made seedless, we may expect other citrus fruits to follow.

Of other tropical fruits, we can expect mangosteens to become seedless. Already we have come across the odd seedless mangosteen fruit. Somebody should find a way to convert this rare possibility to certainty. With durians, nangkas, chempedaks and chikus there are trees that produce fewer seeds per fruit as well as fruits with reduced seed size, but we do not know if complete seedlessness is possible. Does anybody know?

Websites for Tropical Horticulture and Gardening

Tropical Horticulture and Gardening is now listed in the following websites:
www.akademisains.gov.my
www.naturesniche.com

Here are comments from some readers
... magnificent... (Susyn Andrews -- horticultural botanist, Kew, England).
... a real treasure of information and eminently readable... (Tan Sri Chong Hon Nyan -- Patron of the Selangor Gardening Society, Malaysia).
... a monumental book... (Prof. Abdul Latif Mohamad, UKM--National University of Malaysia)
... I like it very much. (J.F. Veldkamp, Editor of the Flora Malesiana Bulletin, Leiden, Netherlands)
... a wonderfully useful book, much needed and a complete source of information re tropical horticulture and botany. (F. M. Schlegel, Forestry Consultant, Hochrhein, Germany)