[....]
He acts like he has the real mahachanok but it's from a seed so not exactly the same as the real one.
[...]

I don't recall anyone claiming to have an original maha chanok that was from a seedling. Please cite a reference.

I believe all 3 or 4 original sources claimed from this board have a variety from Thailand.  The question is are they all the same, which matches the variety from Thailand, and if there are multiple varieties, which one is better   

There is room for more than one GREAT mango!

Aloha Frank. Just introduced myself in the intro area. I asked Milan the grafter for that nursery and he confirmed it's Maha Chanok. I guess the "ch" can be pronounced like a "j", hence the confusion. He said he brought the scions back from the kings mango orchard in Thailand.....

Milan is quite the traveled and experienced grower. It will be a huge loss if and when he retires (he has been saying around 1-2 years).

Well I guess first hand scion delivery pretty much guarantees its an original Maha!

I plant to enter the compost Tee adventure. Now I do need to make very concentrated mixtures since the best way for me is to apply it is via my irrigation system.  My calculation is that I will be able to apply one gallon of brew with 400-500 gal of water.
I have a few questions that have not been answered in what I have read:
1 If you apply to the brew a few ounces of a product like the Super Soil Buster that has various types of microbes, will they multiply in the brew? Same with Mycorrhizae and Inoculants powder products.

2. Would it help to place some of your own soil in the brew to multiply naturally occurring microbes in the soil of the risk of bad stuff growing is too high?

3. Seems like worm casting is the most favored source to start a brew short of growing your own worms where can one find a good fresh source in the Miami area or best to order by mail. Any recommendations?
Thanks

Hi Carlos,
Do you use drip irrigation or high pressure sprinkler nozzles.

My drip system is constantly getting plugged by ants. To clean them out I blow them out or sometimes I have to suck em out... gross I know. It would be nice if I found a device to clear the heads.  The ants love to shove their bodies into the heads and jam them up.  The cost of replacing a half dozen heads every week or two would be too expensive to make the sprinklers practical. Personally, I would be hesitant to put compost tea into my drip system for the bacteria growth. However, I would grow tea and manually apply it to the soil.

searched through the forum and found this


Hot diggity dog that is a big one.  That must be a small child's hand...

Bananas make great shade/windbreak for nurseries.  I like putting my newly grafted trees under the shade.

depends on what you are grafting, and how...there is not specific size range that you can generically apply to all situations.

I have used scions as small as one bud, and as long as 2ft.

I have used them as long as 2 ft, thinking it would push buds all up and down the scion. Where as in fact the scion just pushes branches near the tip. This seems to conclude that it would be better to use shorter scions with a maximum of 2 or 3 buds. If a person has pieces extra long cut them up into multiple scions for multiple grafts. Which is what I learned watching some old timers on videos from CRFG.

So it appears there is a huge variation in the polyembrionic seeds, and the reason is unexplained.
http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/27/2/174.full.pdf

I also read in another article that both the clone and non-clones grow at the same rate, which would contradict using the size to predict which would be clonal material.

Philosophically, I think we can look at it two ways, the mother plant hopes the clones emerge first (avoiding genetic variation), and if the clone doesn't survive then using the cross to succeed. Then one could also look at the problem the opposite way, that the species hopes for more survival by promoting the non-clonal.  http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02927810#page-1

Either way, I still don't get the intended usage of polyembrionic and how it matters in terms of hobbyists since we tend to rely on grafting/tissue culture/air layers/etc.

Sorry if this is coming across as a dumb question.....what I am I missing (scratching my head)?

So you grow multiple seedlings from a polyembrionic seedling. One of them may be identical to the parent. In affect a genetic clone. One does not know which is the clone. Isn't this just a game of chance? Do people grow all the embryos, or selectively choose one and pray?  Is there any science behind the reset of the DNA.  For example, the tree will believe its starting at age 0, instead of some of our most famous named varieties which can be pushing 100 years?

The only benefit I see with polyembrionic is multiple trees/rootstocks that can be split, or joined together in a multirootstock graft.

Hi Michsu,

Its good to hear that you got fruit fairly early from a seedling.

I have about a dozen seedlings of biew kiew. I had originally planned to grow them out. Then learned the flavor can vary. I have been unsuccessful in top working many of them after many attempts. I still need more practice with the whip graft.

I think many of them are 2 to 3 years old. Still fairly small. As I become more nervous about their quality, I have been cutting them down one by one or pairing them with other trees for long term replacement.

If I could go back, I would have started with airlayers....

Please post back on flavor quality of your seedling, maybe it will give me some more courage to grow mine out.

....I dropped my grafting knife out my pouch and cut my foot open.  Thinking its not that bad I kept grafting mangos, until I looked down later and noticed a small pool of blood. Not sure if the fungicide on the knife helped or not, but it stung like heck till it got some neosporin.

I guess steel toed boots are in order now for serious grafting. 

But seriously, I wish I had gotten into this sooner. Its much more enjoyable than I imagined. I actually enjoy giving grafted things away as much as keeping them for myself.  Lately its been a habit to horde seeds to grow rootstocks to graft and give away excess trees.

I have been using my shear pouch, pockets and a milk crate to carry all my grafting goods around between trees and pots in the nursery. I think I may switch to a set of carpenter bags. Anyone use anything similar?

Quote

Quote from: LivingParadise on March 18, 2015, 09:57:59 PM

Quote from: Mark in Texas on March 18, 2015, 02:12:30 PM

I mulch and any weeds that come up, which they will, get nailed with a glyphosate spray.

You might want to keep in mind that chemicals are not actually necessary to keep plants living and prospering, and that what we pump into our soil then goes into the plant's cells and we end up eating it. It also goes into our water supply when it rains as run-off, and we end up drinking it - our water treatment facilities cannot filter out these poisons, they stay in our drinking water and build up the more people in our country put chemicals into our soil. Exposure to chemicals like herbicides have many direct links to cancer and chronic illnesses in people, and over many years they build up in the system so a small exposure becomes a big one. They also kill beneficial bugs and animals, including honeybees.

I happened to go to a lecture just tonight that was focusing on these things, and showing the way such chemicals have destroyed the hormonal workings of our local fish, caused male frogs to grow ovaries, and all sorts of other problems. The person giving the talk had worked for many years in a research hospital for children with cancer, and they found tons of these chemicals in the children's tumors and blood samples, that were there only because of exposure from family and community practices like this that people don't realize can kill - especially when dealing with children or anyone with a weakened or genetically vulnerable immune system. Very few of these chemicals have ever been tested for their safety, or the tests were performed and paid for by the company that makes the chemical - an obvious conflict of interest. Chemical companies have very powerful lobbies.

Prior to reading this thread, just today I also came across an article talking about the link between Roundup herbicide inert ingredients  and cancer, deformed animals, etc. It's a really interesting article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herbicide-p/

These are things to think about.

Many "weeds" are pretty easy to identify and in fact have strong medicinal properties or are edible and extremely healthy - and you get them for free! It might actually be most beneficial to carefully identify what you have, and allow it to grow just big enough to use. Then you have 2 harvests - the plants at the base of the fruit tree, and the fruit tree itself! Purslane is an example of an extremely common weed that is actually VERY healthy, great in salads, and grown in other countries on purpose for food because it's delicious and has a lot of Omega-3s. We don't necessarily have to kill and control everything around us when we grow things in the natural world. Sometimes our environment brings us many gifts for free that we can use in addition to the thing we intentionally planted.

Also this info on Roundup - http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-03-popular-weed-killer-deemed-probable.html

I can say I never used roundup, until I met the Guinea Grass...and then its been a battle. I am pretty sure this is from outer space.  You cut it one day, and it grows several inches in 24 hours. I think you can watch it grow. The only other solution is to dig it out, and then you are highly likely to disturb the soil causing more seeds to germinate.

Edit: I forgot about the other method.... burn it. Kill it with fire.

Before you patent, determine the market capacity, return and distribution.

The market capacity is the amount of money to be made. How many people will buy it and how desirable it will be. How much will a customer be willing to pay for a select variety over other varieties.

Return is how many would have to be sold to pay for the patent cost and then be profitable.

Distribution would either be yourself or marketed by a popular distributing nursery. This would lead to market capacity and return.

I have heard from many people that patented varieties that they never made money. Fortune and glory is often desirable, but maybe its better to find satisfaction in glory (and just give it a name and find pride in its popularization).

I have 5 meyer lemon trees and I plan on making lemonade.

If I had one, I would quarter it, squeeze and add it to water. It makes a good drink in the late afternoon with ice (better than juice and soft drinks, less calories than coffee with cream and sugar).