Avocado grafting

[Mark in Texas]

My Sharwil grafts done last year are on steroids Brad.  7' tall, full and gorgeous.  FWIW all pitaya are doing really well including the Frankie's Red.

Am playing with 3 gal. RootTrapper "Squats" now.  Here's a new Pinkerton graft about 2 weeks ago.  So far so good.  These rigid bags are pretty cheap wholesale.  Seams are tripled stitched.

[spaugh]

Cool, sharwil has a nice compact/spreading growth and also has thick stems and tough leaves that hold up to intense heat.  It doesnt seems to be very salt sensitive either.  If it stays that way through another summer, this is a real winner.  I planted this tree a year or 2 ago.  It had gotten eaten down to a nub by a jackrabbit but made a nice comeback last summer. 

[tve]

Nice project, Brad!
I wanted to ask: what did you use as rootstock and where did you source it, or did you germinate pits?

[spaugh]

I grow seeds from fruit off my mature trees.  Its pretty easy to get avocado seeds started.  They are pretty much 100% germination. 

[Mark in Texas]

Cool, sharwil has a nice compact/spreading growth and also has thick stems and tough leaves that hold up to intense heat.  It doesnt seems to be very salt sensitive either.  If it stays that way through another summer, this is a real winner.  I planted this tree a year or 2 ago.  It had gotten eaten down to a nub by a jackrabbit but made a nice comeback last summer. 

Looks great and no match for the Easter bunny.

Believe it or not I have Sharwil branches thicker than a broom stick handle and if you remember I grafted those May of last year. 

Am up shit creek though with my Reed which is about to go nuts with flowers - for the first time in years I have few if any pollinators.  In the past I usually had a greenhouse full of many different species of moths, butterflies, bees, wasps, and flies.  Don't know what's going on but I do know if I don't get some visitors soon I won't have a Reed crop.  Neighbors lost their hives but many of my pollinators were flies.

Anyone know if you can hand pollinate avocado flowers?   We get an hour or so crossover with both male and female flowers on the same cluster, like this one.

[spaugh]

Mark, you could probably break out a paintbrush and do some pollinating.  We got a lot of rain this winter and the hillsides are covered in wildflowers.  My neighbors honeybees arent doing much here either.  They're busy playing in the wildflowers.

Was looking at the trees yesterday and only saw small wasps and ladybugs pollinating.  Was worried there were mites or something on the trees but nope, lady bugs all over the trees only on open flowers. 

[OCchris1]

Those Lady bugs are your "guard dogs" 

[OCchris1]

Side note: I noticed at least 20 honey bees on my Brewster Lychee the other day going about their business. Hope they take notice of the towering Avocado behind it.

[Mark in Texas]

Yeah, lady bugs are great.  They love aphids.

Come to think of it is wildflower season, big time.  We have folks drive from far and wide to view them, something Lady Bird Johnson started many years ago.  Now that the bluebonnets are finishing maybe they'll be back.  My Gwen was pollinated by flies, hundreds of them.  Even flies are not around.  Nice when you're trying to bar-b-q, not so nice now.  How ironic!

[zephian]

As my trees are young and not ready to bear fruit I don't mind there not being any bees on them, but I too noticed the bees are distracted.
In my case I have hundreds of them in my citrus trees. It's the first scent that hits you when you walk outside, they're ignoring my wildflower bed almost completely to swarm my citrus, and to a lesser extent my strawberry beds.
If my trees flower at the same time as my citrus on a regular basis I'm worried I may have to manually pollinate for any fruit set...

[Mark in Texas]

veneer

[spaugh]

As my trees are young and not ready to bear fruit I don't mind there not being any bees on them, but I too noticed the bees are distracted.
In my case I have hundreds of them in my citrus trees. It's the first scent that hits you when you walk outside, they're ignoring my wildflower bed almost completely to swarm my citrus, and to a lesser extent my strawberry beds.
If my trees flower at the same time as my citrus on a regular basis I'm worried I may have to manually pollinate for any fruit set...

No you wont need to manually pollinate.  The tree is going to make a million flowers and only need to get 10s or 100 to set fruit.  There will be plenty of little bugs to do it for you.

Even in the greenhouse I doubt you wont fet pollination either Mark.  You will probably have way too much fruitset even without the bees. 

Just my guess...  My trees are covered in pea sized fruit.  And bees arent around.

[spaugh]

Check this hass tree out.  Ive got 2 differwnt strains of hass it seems like.  These are lavern hass.  They completely drop the leaves and bloom like crazy.  The fruit is smaller and peels easier than the other one type.  Ive got a few of each type.




Heres the other ones from clausons.  Both are on zutano seedling rootstock.  This kind doesnt drop as much leaf during bloom and fruits harder and less prone to sunburn.

[spaugh]

Heres what the hawaii avos I grafted in the original post are doing












And Ive got about 6 of these reed seeds in the ground I need to graft up soon.  Some are starting to get too big.

[CA Hockey]

Looking good there. Hope those avos sprout up. I acquired a few new varieties from green scene recently. Hopefully they will grow well this year.

Mark, yes you can hand pollinate. You can use a q tip or or something soft or a dead bug trapped in a spider web. You can then light brush against s male flower then come back to pollinate female flowers

You can also just pull off a Male flower and walk around and pollinate female ones later on

[alangr088]

Looking good there. Hope those avos sprout up. I acquired a few new varieties from green scene recently. Hopefully they will grow well this year.

Mark, yes you can hand pollinate. You can use a q tip or or something soft or a dead bug trapped in a spider web. You can then light brush against s male flower then come back to pollinate female flowers

You can also just pull off a Male flower and walk around and pollinate female ones later on

Out of curiosity...Which varieties did you get from green scene? I missed it this year...I have attended the two previous years before.

[Mark in Texas]

Looking good there. Hope those avos sprout up. I acquired a few new varieties from green scene recently. Hopefully they will grow well this year.

Mark, yes you can hand pollinate. You can use a q tip or or something soft or a dead bug trapped in a spider web. You can then light brush against s male flower then come back to pollinate female flowers

You can also just pull off a Male flower and walk around and pollinate female ones later on

Thanks for the info!  I'll try that.

Stock looks great as usual Brad.

[Orkine]

.........

Am playing with 3 gal. RootTrapper "Squats" now.  Here's a new Pinkerton graft about 2 weeks ago.  So far so good.  These rigid bags are pretty cheap wholesale.  Seams are tripled stitched.

......

Whats wholesale equivalent per unit and minimum order size?

[CA Hockey]

I bought a bunch of no name ones that aren't really propagated

One called 'tal', reportedly excellent flavor but every few years some avos will have fiber . Jf said it was her sons favorite and is in her yard. Research name is TX something.

I bought malama to replace my dead and one.

Bob avocado and Schindler avocado. Dont know mich about
Them.

Marshalline avocado also.

These are the ones they usually propagate just 1 of (except malama) and so the budwood doesnt really get passed around. I was trying to find a sally avocado but it wasn't grafted this year. I bought the only tree last year as it came really highly recommended but it fried. I did manage to get some budwood though and it's still green.

Looking good there. Hope those avos sprout up. I acquired a few new varieties from green scene recently. Hopefully they will grow well this year.

Mark, yes you can hand pollinate. You can use a q tip or or something soft or a dead bug trapped in a spider web. You can then light brush against s male flower then come back to pollinate female flowers

You can also just pull off a Male flower and walk around and pollinate female ones later on

Out of curiosity...Which varieties did you get from green scene? I missed it this year...I have attended the two previous years before.

[Mark in Texas]

.........

Am playing with 3 gal. RootTrapper "Squats" now.  Here's a new Pinkerton graft about 2 weeks ago.  So far so good.  These rigid bags are pretty cheap wholesale.  Seams are tripled stitched.

......

Whats wholesale equivalent per unit and minimum order size?

Minimum of 10, about half the cost of retail.

[Mark in Texas]

Check this hass tree out.  Ive got 2 differwnt strains of hass it seems like.  These are lavern hass.  They completely drop the leaves and bloom like crazy.  The fruit is smaller and peels easier than the other one type.  Ive got a few of each type.




Heres the other ones from clausons.  Both are on zutano seedling rootstock.  This kind doesnt drop as much leaf during bloom and fruits harder and less prone to sunburn.

Good grief!  That's a Claritin pill just waiting for some action.

[spaugh]

Heres more pics of the grafted trees.  Everything is coming along nicely.  After doing a lot of avocado grafts Im going to say my best results are with 80F weather and grafted scions put in full sun right away as long as its not much over 80.  The heat and sun on the wood seems to make it flush out faster.  I think thats important if you are grafting small rootstocks and there are little or no supporting leaves left after grafting.  Probably less critical for larger trees.  Im still doing more avocado grafting now in May and it seems fine with the may gray we get in so cal this time of year. 

The small trees are now at the stage where they need corrective shaping and pruning.  You can see the tree tape pulling several of them to correct the leaning.  They sometimes have a bad trunk shape where the graft grows sideways.  Ideally the trunks would be straight and no branching until at least 1 foot above grade.  I am straightening and removing all branches below 1ft.  I like avocado trees with a good central leader at the bottom of the tree.

[tve]

Do I see correctly that the scion is a shooting tip with a bunch of fresh leaves? Do you do anything special in terms of watering before/after grafting?

[spaugh]

The scions are small branch tips taken off the donor tree. They are stripped of their leaves and wrapped in grafting tape and then grafted onto a rootstock. Then the buds grow and break through the tape usually a few weeks/months after grafting.  Hopefully that answered the question, I wasnt sure exactly what you are asking. 

Nothing special as far as watering goes.  If they are in pots and you chop them down to a nub and graft it then they don't use any water if theres no leaves so you can just water less in that case. 

[tve]

Oh, I misunderstood your previous post, I thought they were of freshly grafted plants  . Now it all makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.