Our jackfruit tree has about ten fruits on it and a few of them are quite big. Can anyone advise how to tell when they are ready to be picked? Thanks.

Tapping with a short bamboo stick - listen for a hollow sound.

My wife waits until they start to turn brown on the skin. When the outside is nearly all a slight brown color, they are ready to cut.

Thanks to both of you. I guess mine aren't quite ready yet.

We bought some Durian the other day (currently down in Pattaya so not our own trees), it seems that much of the fruit was not ripe at all. I like it soft but OH likes it firm to the touch

When fruit is ripe generally it will come away from the tree with ease.

A lot of the time my wife waits until they fall off the tree. The fruit is delicious cold from the fridge with sticky rice. My wife has been making rice which tastes a biy like Ambrosia creamed rice from the UK. When she does that she goes up about 20 points in her favour and I dont nag her for at least 2 days.

it should also start to emit its distinctive smell (fragrance? scent?)... but be careful. sometimes even if it is not yet that ripe, some fruits could give out this smell.

I now love the taste of ripe jackfruit - after giving up on it before because of the tasteless stuff I found in most supermarkets. I recently moved to a new house which has a very productive tree and the taste/texture of the fresh, ripe fruit is wonderful.

A couple of words of warning. Be very careful with the milky sap that will flow from the cut stalk - it's incredibly sticky. Secondly, you will definitely get some of the fruit juice/sap on your hands as you remove the individual fruits from the inside. My Karen hilltribe friend showed me that the best (nearly the only) way to get it off your fingers is to wash/rub your hands in dry uncooked rice grains - and maybe bran. Hand soap or dish soap didn't seem to have much effect - kitchen cleaner (e.g. Mr Muscle etc) is better but not 100% effective either.

Still worth it, though!

A couple of words of warning. Be very careful with the milky sap that will flow from the cut stalk - it's incredibly sticky.

Before cutting it up - coat your hands in cooking/vegatable oil.

You need to smell !

The fruits will give out a nice scent of the jackfruit when it is about time.

Usually, I get rather excieted when I spotted some smell of jackfruit around the tree. I will check on each fruit to see where the smell come from!

100 percent accurate!