The literature says that Yangmei is diocious. But I believe someone mentioned that the grafted plants will eventually produce both male and female flowers. Does anyone have more information on this?
I still have the DongKui tree from the previous import in 2012 or so. It’s 5ft tall and wide now after I stopped trying to propagate it (which ended up slowing it down early on). It bloomed the 2nd year, then was weak and didn’t bloom until about 4 years ago. A little before that all I did to it was trim any side and downward growth to make it grow more upright.
Anyway, I haven’t seen any male flowers on that plant ever. This is consistent with what Yunfei said during the recent zoom talk for San Diego CRFG. He’s always said to just graft a pure male for pollen. This shouldn’t be a problem with all the sexed(by DNA markers) seedlings sold by Marta at reallygoodplants.com. She said that the ratio is roughly 50% males.
I got a couple of unsexed seedlings (early on from Marta) growing which I tried to graft this year but they didn’t work. Maybe they’re too young. The grafts from the same round on californica and cerifera are looking alive so far.
The native rootstocks I’ve seen sold are all males. They actually make a few berries. I don’t know if they germinate. I never was able to germinate the native Myrica seeds I bought online either. Maybe I didn’t do enough scarifying to the seeds. They have a wax covering that repels water.
I don’t know if I should say too much about what to do to the imported plants since we imported them when they were relatively dormant back then and this time it’s during the growing season. It’s probably all in the other thread. Humidity and shade are probably still relevant for treating the bareroot shock. I’m glad you guys are trying different things. What everybody’s doing all makes sense. I think you’re giving them the best chance at surviving.
One thing I noticed for grafting is they take a long time to heal. If it starts growing within a month of grafting, it’s not a good sign. I’ve had plenty of grafts that started growing early on that quickly turned brown at a couple mm long.
Potted rootstocks generally go into decline after 1 year is my experience with them. If any of them take for you guys, I recommend planting them as soon as feasible. I had a few previous grafted plants suddenly die on on me in pots. I planted all the remaining rootstocks last year so they’re healthier when I grafted them this year. I have some grafts this year that are still looking alive. I don’t want to say they’re good until they survive the summer heat.
Thicker scions also help grafting success. I think it’s just because there’s more reserve energy to last through the long healing time.