My favorite source of soil amendment and fertilizer is compost.  Four reasons:

  1) It contains a very broad range of plant nutrients, including micro-nutrients.

  2) It improves soil texture and drainage when mixed with soil.

  3) Inhibits weed growth when applied as a mulch.

  4) Usually free.

John

Not exactly a fruit, but I don't know where else to ask:

Is my cinnamon tree "Ceylon Cinnamon" (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) or "Cassia Cinnamon" (Cinnamomum cassia or Cinnamomum aromaticaum)?  I did a Google image search but still aren't sure.

Where can I buy Buddy Tape at a reasonable price? A U.S. supplier preferred, but Australia or New Zealand is okay, too.

Also, how does Buddy Tape compare to Parafilm?  I've been using Parafilm but am looking for a tape that can bind a graft tighter without breaking.  Also, suggestions for a tape with more bounce-back 'memory' than Parafilm would be appreciated.  I use the tape primarily for cleft, veneer and bark grafting.

Thanks,
John

Something constructed a nest in my Rollinia tree.  Should I remove it?  Tree is about 8 feet tall.

Why would you want to remove it?  Are the birds eating too many bugs? 

I have a couple of locations where I left two trees to coexist.  My only concern is that a tree that is not balanced, growing almost entirely on one side, may be more prone to storm damage or problems with heavy fruit.

By the way, the grafting knife one of the Ag guys was using was made from the blade of an industrial fabric cutting tool.  It was very thin and a high-quality tempered steel. 

For pruning shears/secateurs, they preferred ones that consisted of two cutting blades instead of the bypass pruners that cut one side of a stem while crushing the other.

This weekend two guys from Fiji's Department of Agriculture helped me graft mangos on my farm. Allow me to share what we did.

For background, my partner and I have a 15 acre seaside hobby farm in Fiji.  In a 4 acre section near my home I am planting mostly dooryard fruit, while focusing on citrus, mango and avocado for the remainder. The farm also has an area with a low water table and shade for those that need it (cocoa, mangosteen, jaboticaba) and a higher-elevation area for native fruits and those that need wind protection (Fijian Longan, Rambutan).

I asked for help, since my prior mango grafting success record has been poor (~20%), compared to 50% on avocado and 80%-90% on citrus.
   
They came with enough scions for the 117 in-ground rootstocks plus some extra.  We had 4 varieties of scions, in approximately equal numbers:  Mapulehu, Kensington Pride, Nam Doc Mai, and Baramasi.

 

The rootstocks are all 'Fiji mango' - very fibrous but well-suited to the climate.  The rootstocks were in the ground, since I had a powdery mildew problem last year in the shade house and planted them before it became to severe. This meant walking from tree to tree in the field.  My farm hand and I assisted the two grafters as we could.

Almost all the seedling grafts were cleft grafts.  They brought their own tape, and didn't like my Parafilm for mango because it didn't 'bounce back' like their tape did.  I don't know the name of their tape, but after stretched it would contract to tighten on the graft much more than Parafilm.  It was made by Donco but I couldn't find the specific tape on the web. It wasn't a sticky tape and needed to be tied.

They also criticized my knife as not being sharp enough, though I was proud of my sharpening skillls (plenty sharp for kitchen use, too!).   They preferred sandpaper for sharpening.  Something like the 'Scary Sharp' method.   

We also did a few bark grafts when the diameter of the rootstock and scion were extremely mismatched. They preferred this to matching up only one edge on a cleft graft.

   


We also top-worked one young tree in my yard.  On this, they preferred bark grafts.

 
 
The Ag guys expectations for success on the grafts ranged from 70% to 90%.   Even 70% would be great, from my perspective, and we'll do another round to fill the holes in a few months. This is a great step forward for my farm.  Thank you for reading this far.

John

heck cameras certainly don't stop bank thieves, these assholes will probably steal the camera too!!

Well, you do have to use your brain and not place it where easily seen.  And locks are sold for  them but they can be destroyed.  Capture a license plate or a recognizable face and the police may be able to take action before the thief even knows he was on camera.

John

I would call swelling of buds important, but NOT critical, as it's certainly possible to get succesful grafts without it.

Please share, as I am desperate and wanting in this. 

My grafting without swelling buds has resulted in grafts that stay green for a month or more, but never produced new growth.  They eventually died.

Thanks, John

Thanks, Felipe, very helpful.

I would get a grafted mamey tree, so you know the fruit quality.  A seedling may bear fruit with little resemblance to the fruit the seed came from.  It's going to be bad if you wait 20 years for fruit and the fruit ends up being junk.  To encourage brancing, I would remove the terminal bud.

Ha!  Maybe in your location you have access to grafted trees, but as far as I know I have the only mamey sapote trees in Fiji.

Seed grafting, inverted grafting, what's next? How about grafting a root onto a seed? 
What would be the advantage of seed grafting vs. regular budding for citrus?

Oscar, this technology is important primarily because it is amazingly new.  Let's remember that the computer was invented long before the internet.  If you've read the book "Guns, Germs and Steel" you will appreciate that technology usually precedes its ultimate use that benefits society.

That said, seed grafting does allow a hand-pollinated seed to benefit immediately from a more ideal rootstock and expedited growth versus growing on its own seed.

John

I have the same juicer, though a newer version.  It works great on any citrus from golfball to medium grapefruit size.  They need to loose the little drip cup, though.

http://www.amazon.com/Hamilton-Beach-932-Commercial-Citrus/dp/B00015NN0S/