The Tropical Fruit Forum

Quote from: shaneatwell on January 23, 2014, 11:08:22 AM

This question has been bugging me for a year.

Heirloom plants are ones that when self-crossed produce progeny that are identical to the parents. They are developed by self-crossing and selecting for many generations (usually seven or more) until all the genetics are homozygous, i.e. 'fixed'. That is, genes on the two copies of every chromosome are the same (as opposed to having heterozygous dominant + recessive pairs). Thus all the self-crosses are the same as the parent because there's no diversity of genes. Heirloom plants are used by gardeners because they can replant seeds every year instead of buying new ones.

Is this ever done with fruit trees? There's not really the need and by the time you did it, your variety would probably be passe, but still. Anyone know? When I google for heirloom fruit trees all I get are varieties that have been grafted for decades, not at all the same meaning as for e.g. tomatoes.

I think that's a bit of a complex question. Let me start by making a few short points. First it's not true that all heirloom vegetables are all fixed. I remember having grown some that were not stable and so produced different looking fruits. With vegetables usually you have either annual or bi-annual plants. I think it's much easier to stabilize them then it is with perennial plants, such as fruit trees. Also there is the important consideration of whether a plant is self pollinating or cross pollinating, in terms of how easy it is to stabilize the traits. Many vegetables are self pollinating, but not all. So i think the self pollinating ones would be easier to stabilize in just a few generations. Many fruit trees depend on cross pollination so will have more variation and not be so easy to stabilize. Some fruits that are produced asexually are very easy to stabilize, like bananas. Maybe i haven't answered your question very well, as i'm not a geneticist, but i think it's a starting point.

All good points. My eyes were opened on the topic by Deppe's Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1890132721/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1

With regard to your heirloom veggy seeds that didn't grow true, they might not have been heirloom. There's a fair amount of complaining in that community about people selling seeds as heirloom that are not.

But I guess the main point is that there are so many difficulties with trees and so much easier ways of propagating a true cultivar that there's much less reason to make heirloom trees. I still wonder if anyone has bothered to try.

The closest I've come across is perhaps Lamb Hass. Its lineage is something like Hass - (open pollinated) -> Thille - (backcross to Hass) - > Gwen - (backcrossed with Thille) -> Lamb Hass. The major differences with a true self-crossing lineage are 1) don't know what the actual crosses are (could be self, could be back-crosses, could be out-crosses). 2) the progeny weren't selected to be identical in all measured characteristics to the parent or Hass. 3) they are in fact quite different in some respects, especially color and season and to some extent size. However the Lamb Hass probably has fewer undesirable recessive genes due to having gone through 3 generations of selection for what amounts to pretty similar fruit. Anyone out there have a lamb hass seedling thats grown true to its parent?

How would you know? Genetic tests? Or just characteristics? With the influorescences I thought it was difficult to cross Mangos.

Wow. Nasty looking plant. Like Bougainvilla with fruit instead of flowers. Wouldn't want to fall into it.

All I'm saying is that if the government left the market alone, there might be less water and it might be more expensive, but there wouldn't be a crisis. In a free market, when things get scarce people are incentivized to find more. And the more our water use is regulated the more prone we are to future crises. The current 'crisis' looks to me like the logical outcome of past regulations.

The NYTimes article has some interesting observations, but like most of the mainstream media wallows in crisis thinking, dragging in every bit of seemingly related info to bolster its case for wider government control.

Regarding water for crop irrigation, which the article returns to numerous times, there is a huge problem, but that's mainly because the government controls water. Surprise, there are shortages. It doesn't response to customers, but to political and mainly environmental pressures. Allegedly we're protecting some baitfish, but really the environmentalists want to destroy commercial farming and they're getting their wish.

As far as rainfall is concerned, 2013 was a record low for san francisco and probably a lot of central california. But then you have to find that out yourself because NYT reports it in funky ways and you can't tell how their measuring things. What is a 'weekly drought' in a state that can go half a year w/o rain? The whole article is one anecdote after another with the only long-term statistical data displayed in a strange way you can't understand. Very frustrating. And btw, the rainfall in SoCal is at the low end of the historical range, but no record by a longshot.

For sierra snowpack, its low but not a record. 2007 was lower. 1987 was way lower. Oh, but a ski resort manager thinks its the worst in his memory. Its pretty well documented that people have a short memory for things like this and every slightly out of the ordinary weather period seems to them like the worst ever.

If the NYT was doing its job, in place of 10 quotes from non-experts, it would show some normal graphs for rainfall and snowpack. And when it talks about irrigation it would point out all the restrictions the government has imposed regarding water from the sacremento and colorado and the new restrictions on monitoring runnoff. The rainfall is a bit unusual in places, but the farmers are going to be done in by the government control of water, not low rainfall.

surinam cherry (eugenia uniflora):


brush cherry can be either syzygium paniculatum (formerly eugenia paniculata aka eugenia myrtifolia) or syzygium australe. I don't know how to distinguish them, apparently the australe trunk is paler and is more accurately referred to as brush cherry.


Not sure about 'bush' cherry

For me, the hardest part when seeds are slow to germinate, is how to maintain moisture without being too much or too little.

Sometimes I see the muddy ground, and I wonder if I am helping them to rot ... then I stop watering at all, wait till it dries a bit more and cover with plastic and try them to be not too wet, but not dry.

I'm waiting several e. candolleana to show their stem (2 of 25 did it), e. brasilensis have done faster (6 of 25), also m. cauliflora hybrid germinated faster (20 of 25), but many have died (10 or so) just germinated (the stem dried quickly), as well as some e. brasiliensis (5 or so).

Sounds like you're doing stuff directly in the ground. I've been having great luck with this kind of setup on my kitchen counter. Self-watering containers from old water bottles. Was having a tough time keeping things just the right moisture and these do it automatically. I've been using strips of dust rags (old clothes) for the wick, sealing the bottom with the torn corner of a paper towel, and filling with half perlite half peat moss. I usually germinate in a papertowel/ziplock, then transfer to these. The water in a fully loaded one will last 2-3 months in my kitchen, keeping the soil moist the whole time. Will take a picture of my setup when I get home. This is from a google search.

I've got surinam cherry, gin berry, monstera deliciosa, lemon, and tropical guava growing in these at the moment. Passionfruit is the only thing I've tried that germinated and then died, prob from the cold. Then I have a few longer term ones that I don't expect to pop up for many more months, like wooly pindo palm.



http://alittlecampy.com/starting-seeds-indoors-fun-activity-for-kids/

Have lots of them here. Grainy and watery and not great. Survival food. Like a tasteless apple or quince.

For San Diego it was Sept through January this year.

This blog refers to florida cemeteries and appears to have been posted in August at the beginning of the season:
http://www.eattheweeds.com/pindo-palm-jelly-wine-and-good-eats-2/

Maybe you could find a cemetery and offer them some $$ for their pindos?

Reminder that the North County CRFG scion exchange is this friday (1/24/14) @ 7pm.

http://nc.crfgsandiego.org/Home/tabid/285/ModuleID/827/ItemID/73/mctl/EventDetails/Default.aspx

Hoping to meet some local forum members there. Simon? PltdWorld? Marklee? Nullzero?

I was pretty optimistic too. Not discouraged from trying similar experiments yet though.

Looks like the branches grew into each other but didn't fuse. Took only a slight tug to pull the Longan off. Gruituitous inclusion of my dog




Will update syzygium in separate thread.

Even for the date palm, the offshoots apparently arise in a particular time window. A google search on Butia and offshoots doesn't yield much.

Tissue culture does seem the best chance for butia, but who wants to be on the bleeding edge there doing garage experiments? I think a couple groups have achieved some success with Butia using zygotic germplasm (good for embryo rescue but not cloning a parent plant?!?). Didn't find any reports of culturing apical meristem tissue, which I would think would be necessary to get clones.

e.g. http://www.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/semagrarias/article/view/11613