Growers in Colombia are having great success with it, Thomson says. They are tearing out coffee plantations to make more room for the crop, which they export to Europe and Japan. It's much too early to tell whether pitaya cactus will be a viable crop for farmers in Southern California. But the climate is just about right, and his plants are doing quite well. Mangos, on the other hand, have never really worked out in northern San Diego County, as generations of frustrated would-be mango growers can attest.
Many growers have a tree or two producing a small quantity of fruit.
But the trees certainly don't thrive. Emerich explains that mangos and other tropical trees go into arrest at 55 degrees. A few weeks of weather in the 40s will kill them outright. On many winter nights, the temperature in northern San Diego County dips to 50. As a result, those mangos trees that survive at all are retarded in their development.