Yangmei (Myrica Rubra) Group Order - trees all gone

[ronke47]

Sorry for long radio silence.  Been over on the ourfigs.com forum, preoccupied with battling the Black Fig Fruit Fly arrival in SoCal.

Apparently I wasn't the only one whose Dong Kui never made it out of the starting gate.  If I had bothered reading Yunfei Chen's article first, I might not have bothered ordering it.  Alas, my Biqi graft never showed any life but the seedling rootstock it was on is doing great.  I hope to nurture it long enough that it will be graftable someday.

[simon_grow]

A little bit of promising news and a quick update of my Yangmei. I’ve moved my An Hai and Biqi plants into my grow tent in order to control the environment better for my grafting experiments.

On 07/11/21, I put on two side cleft grafts, three bud grafts and one approach graft of my Biqi onto M. Californica. On the same day, I put on one air layer on my An Hai.

After approximately two weeks, it appeared that one of my side cleft grafts were growing but having never grafted Yangmei, I unwrapped one side cleft because I was afraid the growth would not be strong enough to push through the Buddytape. It appeared there was some growth so I decided to leave the Buddytape off instead of re wrapping it but after about three days, I noticed the scion dried up.

At about week 2.5, I decided to unwrap the second side cleft graft and it is still green and it looks like the union has healed up and the buds look like they are enlarged but have not pushed yet. The green tip was manhandled by me and I may have accidentally squished it a bit to hard just handling it while grafting.

I did green wood grafting and the wood I used was very fragile. This is very different from working with lignified wood and you have to be very gentle when handling the green wood and ensure it does not dry out.




The scion looks pretty bad but at least there’s hope with this one.

Simon

[beicadad]

I got some cuttings from Shane and this one seems to have flower buds form on the top already. According to the article by Yunfei Yangmei forms flower buds in summer/fall and I think this is what I’m seeing.

Only the buds on the top look like this. The other buds below looks just like regular vegetative ones.

[simon_grow]

As for my three bud grafts, the first bud I removed was just for practice. When I cut into my M Californica, I noticed the bark was slipping so I thought I might as well try a bud graft. The first bud I removed was dropped two times and it took me several minutes to find it in all the leaf litter and soil. The buds are so tiny that if you drop them, you might as well just select another bud because it may have dried too much by the time you find it. This was confirmed when I decided to just use this first bud anyways. About one week after grafting, I noticed that the entire bud and leaf petiole stub was dried up. It appears that when you bud graft with younger green buds, the failed grafts turn brown pretty quickly.

At about two weeks after bud grafting my second and third bud grafts, one of the petiole stubs dried up on one of the bud grafts but the bud remained green. From previous experience grafting other fruit trees, this is usually a good sign! On 08/10/21 so approximately one month after the bud grafting, I noticed that the bud graft that had the petiole stub fall off was pushing its bud.

This is the graft I’m most excited about because it uses the least amount of plant material. Even though we know that cleft, side cleft and modified cleft grafts work, they use up too much wood. One scion for a regular cleft graft may contain 10 or more buds and if the graft fails, you lose all those buds.

With the bud grafts, you only lose that one bud if the graft fails. Anyways, here’s the bud graft that looks promising so far. You may notice the huge scar from bud grafting. It appears that M Californica leaves huge scars so it may be wise to make the smallest incisions possible that will fit the bud.

I’m surprised it takes a whole month for the bud to push but the bud I used was not swollen, it was just a tiny dot. I didn’t use a swollen bud because others have mentioned that if the graft pushes too fast, it usually dies. I guess this may not apply to bud grafts but who knows. Next time I will try a bud graft with a swollen bud. Maybe it will push faster.





Simon

[simon_grow]

My approach graft of Biqi onto M Californica seems to have calloused over the best. The union is completely formed and the swelling has started to burst the Buddytape.

I will soon begin making incremental cuts on the Biqi rootstock and M Californica top in order to gradually decrease dependence on the portion of the plants that I will eventually be severing.







Simon

[Seanny]

Great job!

[ScottR]

Nice work Simon, your the man along with Fang!! Beautiful pic's too!

[simon_grow]

Thanks everyone,

Here is a picture of the approach graft after I made a 33% depth cut on the M. Californica rootstock tip and a 20% depth cut on the Biqi scion.



Simon

[beicadad]

Simon you’ve made remarkable progresses! Both the bud and the approach grafts look very promising

[simon_grow]

Thanks Ken!

The bud graft is looking really good and based on the tiny size of the bud I used, there is no way possible that the push is from stored energy from that tiny bud. The bud is pushing more everyday and I will soon remove the top of the M. Californica support branch so that all the energy will be diverted to the Biqi bud.

Simon

[simon_grow]

The approach graft was getting girdled as it expands so I decided to remove the Buddytape.




I also snapped the top of the Californica branch to redirect the energy towards the Biqi graft

Simon

[simon_grow]

The side cleft graft has healed up decently but nothing pushing yet. There are three buds that look like they may push soon.



Simon

[simon_grow]

The bud graft is pushing about 5 tiny leaves now




Simon

[nattyfroootz]

Howdy everyone,

I've got a small bunch of Yangmei available again in my store.

www.wildlandsplants.com

[beicadad]

The bud graft is pushing about 5 tiny leaves now




Simon

Wow Simon, this is incredible. Very nice job!

[sc4001992]

Simon, very nice looking grafts, congrats !

[simon_grow]

Thanks Kaz! I’m hopeful but after reading through the Yangmei group,  I realize that there were many people that were initially successful with Yangmei grafts only to have them die later. They seem to like to spontaneously die just when you think you got it right.

I’m using some different techniques, testing different soils, different pH, fertilizers so hopefully I can figure it out. I won’t consider myself successful until I’ve successfully fruited and harvested Yangmei.

Simon

[simon_grow]

Howdy everyone,

I've got a small bunch of Yangmei available again in my store.

www.wildlandsplants.com

Nate, the seedlings I got from you were super healthy! I got them infested with Spider mites but I took care of the problem and they’re bouncing back nicely. In the month I’ve had them, they’ve doubled in size already at 5-6 inches tall for the bigger seedlings and the largest leaves are 5.5 inches long already.

Two of my seedlings are growing very vigorously and the other two are growing very slowly. I read on the Yangmei group that the more vigorous seedlings are likely to be males and the slower ones, and typically the ones that die easier, are females.

If this is true, I may have two males and two females.




Simon

[simon_grow]

You can see the size differences between the two smaller vs the two larger seedlings.


Simon

[pinkturtle]

Wow, is that true?  All my 3 seedlings from Nat didn't grow much.
 That mean I get 3 female.

[sc4001992]

I must have 3 females, my plants are growing very slowly. Also the leaves are not as large as Simon's plants.

[roblack]

Great preliminary results Simon! Blaze the trail brother.

So, what are thoughts on these regarding gender:

3 seedlings from Nate. They look the same to me, with the top one being a little smaller. Thinking 2+ maybe male.


Biqi with rootstock, which looks like it could be male to me, with big leaves and vigorous growth.


Biqi trio. Reuniting, it feels so good.

[nattyfroootz]

It would be interesting to test that and see what the plants are with some testing! (or time if we remember when they start flowering, haha.) Glad to hear they are doing good and glad that nobodies has died yet (that I know of).  I haven't had any plants die since the shipment so they have been pretty stable which is really great.

I have had them all in FoxFarm Ocean Forest and making sure that they stay wet enough where the lower and top do not dry out too much. I had been watering them sparingly at first and that's when I was losing a lot of plants, moisture seems to be important for the young plants, although, not too much to waterlog the plant.  I'm wondering what the best course of action is for planting them out (last year I stepped into 3's from Marta's and they did very well).  I might try to put some in the ground on irrigation. 

I was deciding whether or not to keep some plants for myself but I have a bunch of irrigation to put in so I need the money to expand my plantings... haha.  I might have a couple that will stick around and will probably get them tested if they survive transplant into whatever I do next.

I have some big Myrica californica and Ceanothus thrysiflorus (has Frankia spp.) on my property, so should probably be able to cultivate the bacteria and incorporate it into my plantings

[simon_grow]

Pink turtle, Kaz and Rob,

I’m completely new to Yangmei so I’m just guessing at this point but based on research from what Marta Matvienko posted on the Yangmei group, the female plants are more susceptible to dying off and are slower growers. The males are more vigorous and tend to survive. Marta is a geneticist that runs DNA testing on leaf sample and determines the sex by looking at specific sex related DNA markers if I remember correctly.

She’s sexed many plants for people already and her customers have overwhelmingly reported back that the female have died for some reason but the males survived. Her customers also reported the stark difference in growth rates of her seedlings that were pre sexed.

If your plants are still in the slow growth phase, it will be too difficult to guess at the sex. I think the plants need to get at least twice the size in order to make a more educated guess. If you see one or more seedlings grown under the exact same conditions that are growing at roughly double the rate of other plants, there is an increased likelihood that the more vigorous seedling is male and the slower growing plant is a female. You need to see a difference in growth rate in order to make an educated guess.

Marta mentioned that when she sexed her seedlings, they were roughly 50% male to 50% female.

Simon

[simon_grow]

It would be interesting to test that and see what the plants are with some testing! (or time if we remember when they start flowering, haha.) Glad to hear they are doing good and glad that nobodies has died yet (that I know of).  I haven't had any plants die since the shipment so they have been pretty stable which is really great.

I have had them all in FoxFarm Ocean Forest and making sure that they stay wet enough where the lower and top do not dry out too much. I had been watering them sparingly at first and that's when I was losing a lot of plants, moisture seems to be important for the young plants, although, not too much to waterlog the plant.  I'm wondering what the best course of action is for planting them out (last year I stepped into 3's from Marta's and they did very well).  I might try to put some in the ground on irrigation. 

I was deciding whether or not to keep some plants for myself but I have a bunch of irrigation to put in so I need the money to expand my plantings... haha.  I might have a couple that will stick around and will probably get them tested if they survive transplant into whatever I do next.

I have some big Myrica californica and Ceanothus thrysiflorus (has Frankia spp.) on my property, so should probably be able to cultivate the bacteria and incorporate it into my plantings

Nate, from the root research I’ve done, gradually stepping them up in pot size is the best way to go. Or if you can get them into the ground, People that have planted their plants directly into the ground had better survivability compared to plants that were kept in pots.

Simon