Author Topic: Lemon Zest Seedling Project  (Read 24483 times)

WGphil

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Re: Lemon Zest Seedling Project
« Reply #75 on: March 23, 2017, 09:27:51 AM »
Sure thing

Over at girlfriends now and we did the same thing with her seedlings.

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simon_grow

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Re: Lemon Zest Seedling Project
« Reply #76 on: April 02, 2017, 11:51:13 PM »
I just went out into my yard and crunched up the leaves of 6 Lemon Zest seedlings and they all had a strong Lemon Zest sap smell like the actual parent. The smell of the sap is strong enough that I had to wash my hands after crushing each leaf in order to avoid cross contamination. I did notice that two of my seedlings growing from the same seed had a slightly weaker Lemon Zest leaf sap smell and these two seedlings are the smallest runts and their leaves were smaller and not as juicy as the healthier seedlings.

I also checked several of my Sweet Tart seedlings and the four seedlings I checked all had that Sweet Tart sap smell. Some seedlings did die after the seeds were planted and I wonder if those happen to be the zygotic seedlings.

Wether it's just dumb luck or some other factors I have yet to consider, the important thing is that this technique of planting polyembryonic seedlings and checking the smell of the sap seems like a totally logical way to get larger trees without the risk of early flowering by completely eliminating the need to graft.

There are still lots of issues that may pop up along the way but many of the issues I can think of are highly unlikely. One issue that could happen is that our cold weather can still induce early blooms even on young, ungrafted seedling plants. The only way to find out if this will happen is to grow out our seedlings and keep track of what happens.

Another issue that may occur is that even though the seedlings have the characteristic sap smell of the actual parent, the fruit from the seedlings may not taste anything like that of the parent. This may be caused by mutations, genetic drift or simply because even though the sap smelled the same as the parent, the seedling was actually zygotic and the half of the genes that the seedling received from its maternal parent was enough to pass on the smell in the sap of the zygotic seedling.

I personally feel that these scenarios are highly unlikely.

Simon

behlgarden

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Re: Lemon Zest Seedling Project
« Reply #77 on: May 26, 2017, 11:32:49 PM »
Here is my lemon zest seedling, going into 3rd year. It's about 5 foot tall. I have not pruned but tipped it and it's growing nice canopy so far. Leaves have strong lemony smell, more aromatic than lemon zest. I also have manohar grafted on it just in case seedling disappoints, I will have top choice intact and fruiting. No time lost.



« Last Edit: May 26, 2017, 11:36:47 PM by behlgarden »

simon_grow

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Re: Lemon Zest Seedling Project
« Reply #78 on: May 26, 2017, 11:49:11 PM »
Wow, that tree is absolutely beautiful. I've been neglecting all my trees so many of them look ragged. It will be super interesting how the fruit turns out. Please keep us updated on that LZ seedling!

Simon

behlgarden

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Re: Lemon Zest Seedling Project
« Reply #79 on: February 16, 2018, 12:32:25 PM »
Guys, do we now have firm consensus over what is true clone in poly-embryonic mango seedlings?  My LZ is into its 4th year now and looking very healthy. Although leaves are not like Lemon Zest (wavy), the smell of leaf sap is very strong and citrusy more than LZ.

Has anyone successfully fruited LZ seedling yet? what is the verdict? Mine might fruit next year or who knows when. Usually in CA we get trees to bloom from 2 years on.

simon_grow

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Re: Lemon Zest Seedling Project
« Reply #80 on: February 16, 2018, 06:51:00 PM »
My Lemon Zest seedlings usually get the wavy look after a couple flushes. Here’s a picture of one of my LZ seedlings showing the wavy leaves. Unfortunately many of my random seedlings also have wavy looking leaves.

It’s probably going to be a couple more years before I get Fruit from the LZ seedlings I have planted around San Diego county. To get the best chance of getting a clone, ensure your seedling from a polyembryonic variety has at least two sprouts from different segments of the seed and grow out both seedlings to fruition.



Simon

shinzo

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Re: Lemon Zest Seedling Project
« Reply #81 on: February 16, 2018, 07:42:37 PM »
Guys, do we now have firm consensus over what is true clone in poly-embryonic mango seedlings?  My LZ is into its 4th year now and looking very healthy. Although leaves are not like Lemon Zest (wavy), the smell of leaf sap is very strong and citrusy more than LZ.

Has anyone successfully fruited LZ seedling yet? what is the verdict? Mine might fruit next year or who knows when. Usually in CA we get trees to bloom from 2 years on.
I remember once i read a scientific research about identifiying nucellar and zygotic seedlings from poly seeds, and the experiences showed that for some cases the zygotic was the tallest seedling while in oher cases it was the smallest seedling and for other cases it was the middle one. I can't find this study, but since then i stopped believing that there is an absolute truth about the size of the zygotic seedling and started thinking as simon-grow does : leaving all the seedlings grow and figure out later :)

simon_grow

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Re: Lemon Zest Seedling Project
« Reply #82 on: February 16, 2018, 09:41:51 PM »
Shinzo, I remember coming to a similar conclusion. The dominant seedling being the clone or not is dependent on the variety of Mango.

Here is one paper with some useful information.
http://www.scielo.br/pdf/pab/v47n11/47n11a10.pdf

Note that they found that a seed can produce more than one zygotic seedling.

Simon

Guanabanus

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Re: Lemon Zest Seedling Project
« Reply #83 on: February 17, 2018, 11:09:54 AM »
Thank you, Simon, for the link to that paper.  Sexually produced twins or triplets certainly makes sense.  That some seeds have no nucellar embryos also makes sense.

If we had known those two facts back in the 1990's we would have done a better job at discarding "off-types" from root-stock batches.  The boss and I both selected 10 off-types and 10 on-types , and he sent the four groups to a lab.  He told me later that we had both scored around 80% for each of our groups.
Har

behlgarden

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Re: Lemon Zest Seedling Project
« Reply #84 on: February 19, 2018, 11:35:33 AM »
Problem with my 7 seedlings that came up, one after the other 6 died. last one that died was good until 2.5 years but grew only 12", do theory of it being close cannot be true for slower ones as they may never mature or make it. the 7th one that was leader of the pack from day 1 is now over 6 feet tall.  I plan on giving it  a decent hack job to get some fresh growth, last year growth was thin branches and may not result in strong plant. Does pruning spur blooms?