Yangmei (Myrica Rubra) Group Order - trees all gone

[simon_grow]

I haven’t need to water yet after potting them since they are kept in high humidity. I will only water them when the pot feels light. I think at this stage it’s best not to water until the potting mix is dry. Just like rooting cuttings - overwatering kills new roots easily

Ken, I absolutely agree. I still haven’t watered since my initial watering. It’s starting to dry up but there’s still probably 30-40 moisture in the soil. I may have to water tomorrow or on Thursday. Since it’s out of direct sun and the humidity is kept high from my humidifier, the soil is taking a long time to dry out.

I don’t want it to be bone dry, but I also don’t want root rot.

Simon

[simon_grow]

It looks like most Yangmei are diocious but there is at least one that is monoecious.

Here’s a paper on the genetic diversity of Yangmei

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277028420_Genetic_diversity_of_male_and_female_Chinese_bayberry_Myrica_rubra_populations_and_identification_of_sex-associated_markers/fulltext/582f439f08ae102f072f3331/Genetic-diversity-of-male-and-female-Chinese-bayberry-Myrica-rubra-populations-and-identification-of-sex-associated-markers.pdf?origin=publication_detail

Simon

[FV Fruit Freak]

Simon- YOU DA MAN. Awesome work so far and thanks for sharing the valuable knowledge.

My Biqi is the only one that is still alive, with tiny buds trying to push, slowly. The An Hai I gifted to a friend died (shoulda kept it, haha) I did graft branches from each variety and noticed a green bud pushing through the graft tape on the An Hai graft today. I’ve been watering with rain water and only watered once. I don’t think the dongkui or black peak had much of a chance to begin with...only Biqi and An Hai had the little white roots and tiny leaves when I picked them up.

Good luck everyone!

[Kuhyay]

Simon and Richard, that is some really encouraging growth. I hope that they continue to thrive!

As for my 4 trees, my results have been less exciting:
* 1 dongkui - died back to just above the graft, rootstock is still green
* 1 dongkui - green with no new growth
* 2 biqi - green with tiny buds, but not pushing.

After a week in high humidity, I wrapped each tree. They remain in ambient light with ~60% rh at 70-75 degrees.

I grafted 3 of each variety onto M. Californica and I’m seeing some swelling in each of the grafts except one biqi which looks a bit dried out. I’m actually hoping they slow down a bit since I want the grafts to heal more before they push. These are in part sun.

[simon_grow]

Thanks FV Fruit Freak and Kuhyay,

Hopefully the growth continues but I do see more of the thinner branches dying.

Something we should all keep our eyes out for is the fungus attacking the leaves of Yangmei plants in China. The fungus is called Pestalotiopsis sydowiana and here’s a it more information.

https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/abs/10.1094/PDIS-01-12-0065-PDN


Probably nothing we should be overly concerned about but if we see the described patterns of necrosis on the leaves, we may want to treat it immediately.

Simon

[simon_grow]

This abstract says that the soils in Yangmei growing regions have a soil pH of around 4-6. They also mentioned the soils had low organic matter and the orchards all had high B content which I presume is Boron. Very interesting information

https://pdf.hanspub.org/HJAS20191200000_58692802.pdf

Simon

[simon_grow]

Those samples were from a single province in China so we can’t assume all Yangmei growing provinces will have a similar soil analysis result.

Simon

[simon_grow]

Yup, looks like Boron may be a piece of the puzzle in keeping these trees happy.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01904167.2013.864305

Beware of the extreme toxicity to plants if boron is over applied. I’ve nearly killed a few mango trees when I accidentally over applied boron on my trees. The leaves turned yellow and chlorotic. It took me several months to slowly flush away the excess Boron.

Simon

[simon_grow]

Too much heat and light can cause increased photo inhibition. In other words, when it’s hot and sunny, photosynthetic capacity is reduced.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=myrica+rubra+scholarly+growing+articles+site:www.sciencedirect.com&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3DMY-KhtkBuTYJ

I also wanted to update that my Dongkui and Black Peak don’t look so good. Although there are a few buds on each tree, the buds look like they could be drying up but a few buds still look ok.

Simon

[simon_grow]

Here’s an update on my Biqi



And the same Biqi but growths from the rootstock



Simon

[simon_grow]

Here’s my An Hai





Simon

[K-Rimes]

Wow Simon, you really have it dialed. I am impressed. Mine aren't even close to there.

[simon_grow]

I finally have roots popping out the bottom but only for An Hai. There is perlite in my mix, the roots are the longer thin growths coming out of the drainage holes.



Simon

[BonsaiBeast]

I finally have roots popping out the bottom but only for An Hai. There is perlite in my mix, the roots are the longer thin growths coming out of the drainage holes.



Simon

Have you watered yet? Impressed the roots have already made it down there

[simon_grow]

No, I only watered them on the very first day when I potted them. The pots still feel like there’s about 30-40% moisture so I will probably wait one more day when they’re closer to 30% moisture remaining. The roots are poking through because I put them in the smallest container that I could fit them into. This gives me easier control of soil moisture.

Because the cut tap root and secondary roots were already at the bottom of the pot, they only needed to grow a tiny bit in order for me to see them.

My plan is to let them fill this small pot with roots and transplant them to the next size pot before they get root bound. With this technique, the root hairs will attach to the fibers in my soil mix and the entire root ball should slide out without much transplant shock.

This is how I did it for my rooting experiments with other species.

Simon

Simon

[fyliu]

Wow, Simon, I think your plants are back to good health now that there’s roots and the shoot growth is longer. I did the same thing with the smallest containers and light potting mix so I could tell when to add water. It took 4-6 months for me though.

Oftentimes the grafts start to grow and then turn brown. Here’s a couple shots today of my grafts. The grafts were done in January.

You can see how there are many buds that pushed and turned brown right after. One of them did keep growing. The small green one is not out of the woods yet. This is why I say having the graft push too soon after grafting is not a good sign. They die once they run out of available buds if the graft union hasn’t bridged.

I did grafting during the cool season. You guys doing grafts this round can provide data on how well spring grafts work with the warmer weather. Who knows, it might help them heal faster. It’s not something I’ve tried before but I hope for a good outcome.

[simon_grow]

Wow, Simon, I think your plants are back to good health now that there’s roots and the shoot growth is longer. I did the same thing with the smallest containers and light potting mix so I could tell when to add water. It took 4-6 months for me though.

Oftentimes the grafts start to grow and then turn brown. Here’s a couple shots today of my grafts. The grafts were done in January.

You can see how there are many buds that pushed and turned brown right after. One of them did keep growing. The small green one is not out of the woods yet. This is why I say having the graft push too soon after grafting is not a good sign. They die once they run out of available buds if the graft union hasn’t bridged.

I did grafting during the cool season. You guys doing grafts this round can provide data on how well spring grafts work with the warmer weather. Who knows, it might help them heal faster. It’s not something I’ve tried before but I hope for a good outcome.

Wow Fang, that looks super promising! I haven’t done any grafts yet. I wanted to keep all the green branches in hopes the scion will push. My Donkui and Black Peak have buds but nothing is budging, I guess this could be good so that the roots can catch up.

Hopefully one of my rootstock buds is a male so I can share scions with you and other members with living trees.

Simon

[beicadad]

Wow, Simon, I think your plants are back to good health now that there’s roots and the shoot growth is longer. I did the same thing with the smallest containers and light potting mix so I could tell when to add water. It took 4-6 months for me though.

Oftentimes the grafts start to grow and then turn brown. Here’s a couple shots today of my grafts. The grafts were done in January.

You can see how there are many buds that pushed and turned brown right after. One of them did keep growing. The small green one is not out of the woods yet. This is why I say having the graft push too soon after grafting is not a good sign. They die once they run out of available buds if the graft union hasn’t bridged.

I did grafting during the cool season. You guys doing grafts this round can provide data on how well spring grafts work with the warmer weather. Who knows, it might help them heal faster. It’s not something I’ve tried before but I hope for a good outcome.

Thanks for sharing! It took 3-4 months for the second graft (side graft) to grow just that little bit? What graft did you use for the first one?

Is the rootstock M. Californica?

[ScottR]

Nice Simon,roots mean your on your way to growth.

Fang, nice work grafting on your plants and rootstock your using?
Your guy's are getting great results on your plants keep up the great work we all are looking up to you guy's

[simon_grow]

Thanks Scott, I’ll keep everyone updated on the progress of these plants.

Marta Matvienko from Reallygoodplants.com has had success growing out Yangmei seeds. She is a geneticist and has mentioned that mono potassium phosphate may be very detrimental to Yangmei plants. She also mentioned that there is anecdotal evidence that Yangmei likes Iron.

Marta also mentioned that young Yangmei plants may be very sensitive to pest pressures and she recommends that we avoid putting our trees under the shade of larger trees because the larger trees could rain down spores and bugs (mites and thrips) which could easily overwhelm a young Yangmei plant. If your tree is already under a larger tree, she recommends checking the leaves for pest damage. Instead of a tree, she recommends a shade structure or shade sail.

I don’t know Marta. It would love to have her here on this forum to give us some advice if she’s not already a member.

Simon

[simon_grow]

What a small world, I just emailed Marta and she knows Leo Manuel. Anyways, Marta said that using media/soil with low organic content seemed to help with the seedlings survival in pots. She believes it helps because of the better drainage.

Marta also mentioned that once the roots have established, she fed her plants with a diluted soluble fertilizer. Her experience is with growing out seedlings but this can help us significantly if we want to propagate more trees.

Simon 

[simon_grow]

For those of you that have Yangmei trees where the scions have died back, don’t give up on the tree because the rootstock is Yangmei and you could have a good seedling selection or perhaps a male seedling. Marta does DNA testing to determine the sex of Yangmei and it costs $200 for ten samples so it’s not bad at all.

Simon

[spaugh]

i started moving the biqi trees out in the sun.  they still have a bag on them but im pushing 1 of them into full sun already just to see how hard I can push it.  seems ok so far been doing it for 3 days now increasing the exposure each day.  its got leaves starting to grow. 

[FV Fruit Freak]

i started moving the biqi trees out in the sun.  they still have a bag on them but im pushing 1 of them into full sun already just to see how hard I can push it.  seems ok so far been doing it for 3 days now increasing the exposure each day.  its got leaves starting to grow.

Nice. Are you bringing them in at night?

[simon_grow]

Brad, thanks for pushing the limits. Keep us updated on how this plant handles the sun. If it does well, we won’t have to baby them as much.

Simon