Jackfruit Trees for Sale: Dwarf, Grafted and Hybrid Varieties

Jackfruit is the world's largest tree fruit, native to Southeast Asia, and a single fruit on a mature tree can pass 40 pounds. Everglades Farm grows dwarf grafted, standard grafted, hybrid and seed-grown jackfruit trees at our plant nursery in Homestead, Florida. Most sizes ship to your door, and a few varieties are sold for local pickup only, which is marked on each product page.

Ripe jackfruit carries vitamin C, potassium and dietary fiber. The ripe flesh eats like a dessert fruit, sweet enough for smoothies and ice cream, while green unripe jackfruit has a meaty texture that cooks into a plant-based pulled pork substitute.

Grafted vs. Seedling Jackfruit Trees

Grafted jackfruit trees are built from two plants. A scion, which is a cutting taken from a proven parent plant, is joined to the rootstock of a young seedling. That is grafting, a form of vegetative propagation also called asexual propagation, and it matters more for jackfruit than for most fruit trees.

A jackfruit grown from seed does not come true to type. The flesh color, the sweetness and the fruit size are all a lottery, because every seed carries a new genetic mix. A grafted tree repeats the parent cultivar exactly, so the fruit you harvest is the fruit you chose when you bought the tree.

Time to fruiting is the second difference, and it is the one most home growers feel. Grafted jackfruit usually begins fruiting 2 to 3 years after planting, since the scion is already adult wood and its time to flowering is short. A seedling jackfruit commonly takes 7 years or longer.

Seedling trees are not a mistake, though. They build a deeper root system, they grow into a thicker trunk and branches that carry heavy crops, and many growers report better cold hardiness in the trunk. We sell both, and the choice comes down to how long you are willing to wait.

Benefits of Grafted Jackfruit Trees

• True-to-type fruit: the cultivar you order is the cultivar that fruits, with the same flavor and flesh color as the parent tree
• Faster harvest: fruiting in 2 to 3 years instead of 7 or more
• Dwarfing habit: most of our grafted selections prune easily to around 8 feet, which keeps picking within reach
• Stronger rootstock: our grafts sit on hardy seedling roots chosen for vigor, pest resistance and disease resistance in Florida soil
• Known fruit size and season: a grafted Dang Rasimi, for example, fruits mid season in July and August at 18 to 20 pounds per fruit

Jackfruit Hybrid Options

Jackfruit hybrid options come from crossing jackfruit with its closest relative, chempedak. The cross is written jackfruit x chempedak, or Artocarpus x integer, and nurseries sell it under a few names: Jackedak, Cheena, and in some catalogs Jackedak Cheena.

Cheena, the Jackedak Hybrid Variety We Sell

Cheena is the hybrid variety we grow. It is a grafted tree, not a seedling, so it carries the cross faithfully. The chempedak parent gives it a softer, more custardy flesh and a deeper aroma than standard jackfruit, and it holds less latex, which makes cutting a fruit far less sticky. The jackfruit parent brings the large size and the heavy yield.

Hybrids reward growers who want something the neighbors do not have. Expect variety in flavor and size across a single season, since fruit weight on a young hybrid tree climbs year by year as the canopy fills out. Our Cheena is offered in a 3 gallon container at about 2 to 3 feet, and as a larger tree at about 4 feet in a 14 inch, 7 gal pot.

Hybrid fruit also runs smaller than a pure jackfruit, usually 5 to 15 pounds against the 30 or 40 pounds of a large size jackfruit, which matters when you are carrying one in from the yard. The flesh is deep amber, the arils pull away cleanly, and the seeds are edible after a short boil. Seedling-grown hybrids are sold elsewhere, but a seedling will not hold the cross, so every hybrid variety we list is grafted.

Growing a Hybrid Jackfruit Tree

The recommended fertilizer for a young hybrid is a slow-release granular blend. Our containers ship with a premium slow-release 8-3-9 granular fertilizer already mixed into the soil, so nothing is needed for the first few months. After that, feed three times a year through the warm season and water deeply rather than often.

Jackfruit Tree Varieties

Jackfruit tree varieties differ more than most buyers expect. Flesh color runs from pale yellow to deep orange, texture runs from crispy to soft, and mature fruit weight runs from a few pounds to well past 50. Sizes sell out and come back through the season, so check the size options on each page for what is in stock today.

Choosing the right variety comes down to three questions: how much room you have, how long you will wait, and whether you want the fruit fresh or cooked. For a small yard, Black Gold, Gold Nugget and Honey Gold stay low and fruit early. For crisp flesh that holds its shape in a salad, MAI 1 and MAI 2 are the picks. For volume, Dang Rasimi and Black Gold carry the heaviest crops.

You will also see names in jackfruit circles that we do not currently grow, among them Lemon Crunch, Super Thai, Golden Pillow (Mong Tong), Thai Globe (Kun Wi Chan) and Borneo. Our lineup stays with the selections that fruit reliably in Florida heat and humidity, which is why Black Gold, Gold Nugget, Honey Gold, J-31, Orange Crush and the small dwarf habit types repeat year after year.

Dwarf Grafted Varieties

Dwarf grafted jackfruit trees stay manageable in height while producing full-sized fruit, often within 2 to 3 years of planting.

• Golden Nugget Dwarf Jackfruit: golden flesh, sweet, tops out around 6 to 8 feet
• Black Gold Dwarf Jackfruit: Australian selection, heavy cropper at 120 to 200 pounds per tree
• J-31 Dwarf Jackfruit: off-season fruiting, so the harvest lands outside the usual window
• Vietnam Dwarf Jackfruit: traditional Southeast Asian selection, compact habit
• Cantaloupe, grafted: rare dwarf with melon undertones in the ripe flesh
• Cochin Dwarf Jackfruit: South Indian heritage variety, aromatic when ripe
• Honey Gold Dwarf Jackfruit: rare, sweet, another off-season bearer
• Small / Mi Papi Jackfruit: small, dwarf habit, the pick for container growing
• Dang Rasimi Dwarf Jackfruit: Thai semi-dwarf, 18 to 20 pound fruit, yields of 165 to 275 pounds

Standard Grafted Varieties

If space allows, full-size grafted jackfruit trees give larger harvests and more distinct flavor profiles.

• Cheena Jackfruit Tree: the jackfruit x chempedak hybrid, custardy flesh, low latex
• Orange Crush Jackfruit: deep orange flesh, citrus note, grafted onto hardy rootstock
• MAI 1 Jackfruit Tree: original Thai stock, extra crispy golden-yellow flesh, oval fruit
• MAI 2 Jackfruit Tree: Thai origin, crispy flesh, fruit averaging 25 to 35 pounds
• Jackfruit Banana Crush: banana note over the usual tropical sweetness
• Tangerine Jackfruit: sweet citrus-toned flesh, good for fresh eating

Jackfruit Seeds and Seedling Options

Seed-grown jackfruit takes about 7 years to fruit, and the fruit will not match the parent tree. What you get instead is a vigorous root system and a tree that can outlive you.

• Dang Rasimi Jackfruit Seedlings: semi-dwarf seedlings grown from Thai stock
• Red Morning Jackfruit Seedlings: seedlings selected for deep red-orange flesh

Buying Jackfruit Trees Online

Buying jackfruit trees online is not like picking up a shade tree at a garden center. You are ordering a living tropical tree, and the two things that decide whether it arrives healthy are how the plant nursery packs it and how far it has to travel.

Everglades Farm ships from Homestead, Florida, so trees leave a subtropical climate already hardened off for heat and humidity. Each tree ships in its own container with the soil intact, so the root system is never bare. Trees are grown here rather than bought in, which is why we can tell you the graft date range and the age of what you are buying.

A few points worth checking before you order anywhere:

• Size options: a 1 gallon whip and a 7 gallon tree are years apart in time to fruiting, and both are sold as the same variety
• Shipping rules: some varieties are pickup only at the farm, and some states restrict citrus and tropical plant shipments
• Grafted or seedling: the listing title should say which, and the price usually tells you anyway
• What else ships with it: we grow compact fruit trees, rare fruiting plants, tropical fruit and spice trees, and medicinal and culinary herbs, so an order can travel together

If you are buying for someone else, gift cards let them pick their own variety and their own planting window, which beats guessing at a tree for a grower you do not live with.

Growing and Harvesting Tips

Jackfruit trees want 8 to 10 hours of direct sun, warm nights and deep, regular watering. They fruit reliably outdoors in USDA zones 9 to 11 and grow well in large containers further north when they can move into a greenhouse or garage for the coldest weeks. Young trees are the tender ones, so protect the first two winters and give the trunk room to thicken.

Feed three times through the warm season with a slow-release granular fertilizer, and stop feeding in late fall. Prune after harvest rather than before, and hold most selections to around 8 feet so you can pick from the ground.

Ripe jackfruit gives off a strong sweet aroma and yields slightly to pressure. Cut it with an oiled blade to keep the latex from sticking. Ripe flesh is eaten fresh, blended into smoothies or frozen into ice cream. Green unripe fruit is cooked in curries and tacos as a meat substitute, and the seeds boil or roast into a nutty snack that tastes close to a chestnut.

Why Buy Florida-Grown Jackfruit Trees?

Florida-grown jackfruit trees arrive already adapted to the heat, the rain and the sandy, alkaline soils of the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. They are not forced under glass in a cool climate and then shipped south to struggle. Growing your own also means you pick at full ripeness, which is the one thing supermarket jackfruit cannot give you, since it is harvested green to survive the trip.

Pick the tree that matches your space and your patience. A dwarf grafted variety fruits fast and stays short, a hybrid like Cheena gives you something unusual, and a seedling tree is a decades-long project for the next owner of your garden.